NovatoSpirit Kids Happy to Participate in Sports

Novato this summer has been filled with smiles. Children participating in sports offered through the nonprofit NovatoSpirit had a blast kicking, running, and spinning. Some NovatoSpirit girls performed with their Love 2 Dance classmates at the Marin Civic Center Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, and our karate kids competed at a tournament held at Ito’s White Tiger Kempo Karate School. For their efforts, the children received flowers, ribbons, and medals—and all got a rowdy round of applause!

One of our elementary-school aged boys impressed the dojo audience by his enthusiastic performance with the karate demo team. This is what he wrote recently: “I am really happy to have karate because it teaches me simple things like saying, ‘yes maam’ and ‘yes sir.’ I like karate because I make friends and I learn. I think learning is good. I also think that karate is helping me believe in me more. I like that I am doing really good and improving. I like my classmates, my teachers, and my practices a lot. I am very happy to have karate in my life. I will continue to improve and try more and more so that I can make my peers, teachers, and family proud as I feel of myself.”

NovatoSpirit has welcomed several new students to our athletic scholarship program. One of them is a girl who wished for one of our scholarships to Master Myong O’s Kyung Ki Tae Kwon Do School. She wrote, “I believe that participating in martial art classes will help me improve my self esteem because it will teach me how to be more confident. I have had issues in school with bullying where peers have attacked me physically and verbally. Participating in martial arts classes will also help me reach the goal of being at peace with others around me.”

Generous donors are helping her to reach her goal. This generosity has enabled this girl and others to engage in sports that are meaningful, encouraging them to improve their lives. We appreciate this goodwill and support!

We’re also grateful for recent grants from the Peter E. Haas Jr. Family Fund, West Cal Financial, the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, and from our new Partner, One World Children’s Fund (owcf.org), which helps impoverished children in more than 40 countries around the world. A friendly team of staff, volunteers, and founders from One World came to Novato in July to meet and talk with some of NovatoSpirit’s students and athletic instructors. We all appreciate One World’s attention and care, since they are helping to boost NovatoSpirit around the Bay Area and beyond.

NovatoSpirit is a 501c3 nonprofit that awards athletic scholarships for karate, tae kwon do, dance, basketball and soccer to children in Novato living at 200% of the Federal Poverty Level. If you are interested in supporting us or learning more, please visit our website NovatoSpirit.org, or contact our executive director Marian Schinske at (415) 892-5118.