Young Quakers Community Athletics

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Young Quakers Community Athletics (YQCA), a collaboration between the Netter Center for Community Partnerships and Penn Athletics, creates mutually beneficial partnerships between Penn intercollegiate athletic teams and West Philadelphia public schools.

YQCA establishes athletic teams with students from Penn’s University-Assisted Community Schools (UACS) in West Philadelphia and engages them with Penn’s varsity teams. YQCA currently operates during after school time with students in grades 4 through 8.

The Penn players mentor the children on the field and off. In addition to the mentoring, YQCA provides staff, coaches, uniforms, sports equipment, bus transportation, and access to the University’s world-class playing fields at no cost to the schools or their students. The public school students also benefit from the Netter Center’s comprehensive UACS programming, which brings additional academic, human, and material resources from Penn to their schools during the school day, after school, and in the summer.

Founded in 2012 with boys’ lacrosse at Comegys University-Assisted Community School, YQCA quickly grew to include girls’ lacrosse and co-ed track and field. Today we serve 4th-8th grade students from four University Assisted Community Schools: Comegys Elementary, Hamilton Elementary, Lea Elementary, and Mitchell Elementary. We work with five Penn teams that have adopted the YQCA model: Men’s Lacrosse, Women’s Lacrosse, Track and Field, Men's Basketball, and Women's Basketball.

In fall 2020, Young Quakers Community Athletics was named a National Youth Sports Strategy (NYSS) Champion.

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