Sports built us. We're passing it on.
Rise Up Sports Foundation (RUSF) is a student-led nonprofit that runs free after-school basketball and soccer clinics inside partner elementary schools across Chicagoland.
To give every kid in Chicagoland access to structured youth sports, at zero cost, coached by high schoolers who care.
The problem we saw
Youth sports access is uneven across Chicago. In some neighborhoods, kids move from rec leagues to travel teams to varsity without missing a beat. In others, structured programming disappears before 4th grade, or was never there at all. We started RUSF because that gap is fixable, and it shouldn't come down to the ZIP code a kid is born in.
The gap is bigger than missing games. It's missing everything sports quietly teach: how to lose, how to win, how to trust teammates, how to keep showing up when it's hard. Those lessons compound. Kids who get them carry a head start on confidence, discipline, and belonging into high school, college, and beyond.
Our approach
We keep it simple on purpose. Trained high school volunteers walk into partner schools' existing after-school programs and run weekly basketball and soccer clinics. We bring the equipment. We bring the structure. The school and families pay nothing.
Because we plug into after-school slots that already exist, principals don't have to redesign a schedule or find new space. Because our coaches are students, they're close enough in age to be relatable and seasoned enough to actually teach the game. And because we're volunteer-run, every dollar donated goes straight to programming: balls, cones, pinnies, first-aid, and expansion to the next school.
Why student-led matters
Adults have built nonprofits for kids for a long time. We think there's real value in something different. Teenagers who remember exactly what it felt like to be a 3rd grader looking up to a 10th grader run the program. That builds pipeline: our players today are our coaches tomorrow. And it teaches the high schoolers running it as much as the elementary kids getting coached.
Kids in under-resourced areas deserve the same access to youth sports as everyone else. Full stop.
What we care about
No cost, no barriers.
Every clinic is free. Schools pay nothing. Families pay nothing. Equipment is provided. If a kid wants to play, we find a way.
Real coaches, close in age.
Our volunteers aren't strangers in polo shirts. They're high schoolers who remember what it felt like to be 8 and picking up a basketball for the first time.
Show up every week.
A great clinic once a semester doesn't change a kid's trajectory. Weekly, reliable, structured programming does. That's the standard.
Built with schools, not for them.
We partner. We check in quarterly. We ask what's working and what isn't. Principals and after-school staff are on the team, not the audience.