Our Mission:
Empower.
We provide students with tools and opportunities to help them blossom into their best selves, as athletes, students, and global citizens.
Our Mission
To offer a group of traditionally underserved students year-round intensive squash instruction, individualized academic tutoring, and community service opportunities so that they may better recognize and fulfill their potential in life as students, athletes, and global citizens.
Our Programs
WESA focuses on three pillars- squash, academics, and community service. We base our approach on the successful model of the Squash + Education Alliance and the first squash and education program, SquashBusters, located in Boston, MA.
Squash
This niche sport may seem like a strange choice at first but the more you learn about it, the more natural of a fit it seems to be. Squash and education programs aim to create opportunity. That first opportunity is providing access to a sport that is traditionally locked behind a financial barrier (i.e. access to squash courts, private coaching, and appropriate equipment). Squash is a team sport that simultaneously focuses on and encourages personal growth. We focus on grit, growth, and integrity, three pillars that transfer beautifully between the classroom and the courts.
Community Service
We believe in the importance of giving back and working to make our community the best it can be. WESA also fosters personal growth and development- by learning how you can give back to your community, beginning in the third grade, WESA scholars understand their strength and impact as individuals within the larger community.
Academic Tutoring
Scholar-athletes are made at WESA. At WESA we believe whole-heartedly in the benefits of sport for youth, both mentally and physically. However, our focus is on the intersection of athletics and academics. Much of what you learn in one can be transferred to, and make you more successful in, the other. We believe that academic success, and more importantly what you learn along the way to it, opens doors for students that nothing else can. Focusing on students’ greatest areas of need, with a focus on their personal areas of interest, is what our academic support is all about!
summer @ WESA
Each year, Summer @ WESA includes a mix of squash, academic enrichment, and field trips! Based around a different theme each summer, our students have the opportunity to explore something new together- whether that be video game design, filmmaking, coding, or the impacts of social media.
Our Impact
We begin working with our students in third grade and continue to work with and support our students through high school graduation. We believe deeply in the power of positive relationships and consistent support for our scholars. We work closely with our scholars as well as their families and schools in order to ensure the best possible outcomes for each of our students through these meaningful partnerships built year after year.
1+
thousand academic hours
WESA has provided over 1,000 hours of additional academic focused work time for our scholars.
5+
hundred hours athletic training
WESA has provided over 500 hours of squash and fitness training to our students. We strive to help our scholars develop as athletes and also to learn how to prioritize their person health and fitness to ensure that they are their healthiest selves.
16+
community service projects
WESA students have completed numerous community service projects, including serving at North Helpline Food Bank, removing over 1,200 square feet of invasive plants, and planting trees to help maintain the Mountains to Sound Greenway.
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Last fall, when my son came home with a permission slip for squash, I thought he'd decided to join an afterschool extracurricular activity. Well, I’ve been pleasantly surprised! It’s adjusted his behavior in ways I hadn’t expected and I’m pleased at how differently reality proved from my earlier expectations. I’d been having some resistance in different areas with him over the past couple of years, mostly relating to typical growing pains. Since he’s joined [WESA], he’s been consistently keeping his room clean and his bathroom tidy; as both tasks are critical to his ability to participate in said week’s [WESA] activities. Prior to this it was a struggle to get him to recognize what a clean room even looked like! That alone speaks to how much he values what he gets from participating.
WESA Parent
Get Involved
Ready to take the next step? You can become a contributor to our cause or participate yourself!
Sign Up For WESA
Does your child attend Northgate Elementary, Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, or Ingraham High School? Are they interested in learning a new sport and getting extra help with their academics? WESA may just be the program for them!
Volunteer opportunities
If you love working with youth and are looking for a way to get involved in your community, we have many volunteer opportunities that we’d love to share with you!
Make a Donation
We are a community-funded local nonprofit and public charity. We are powered by the generosity of our community- your donation is what creates opportunity for our scholars.