Basketball Star Reaches Out to Young Girls

After Dawn Staley helped the United States women’s basketball team clinch the gold medal in the

1996 Olympic Games, she wanted to share her good fortune. The feeling of winning “was just too good for me to experience it myself,” she says. “Nowadays, the little girls and boys are even worse off than I was. I wanted to give them an opportunity to experience something positive.”

Ms. Staley, now a professional basketball player with the Charlotte Sting, created the Dawn Staley Foundation, which raised more than $100,000 last year to sponsor three after-school programs: two in North Philadelphia, where Ms. Staley grew up, and one in Charlotte, N.C., where Ms. Staley lives during the summer while she plays for the team there.

The three programs serve a total of 85 girls ages 11 to 15. The girls receive tutoring help and play sports for three hours after school four days a week. The programs also bring in financial planners, doctors, and other professionals to talk to the girls about their jobs. And in Philadelphia, representatives from Health Partners of Philadelphia, a health-maintenance organization, visit weekly to teach health-education, computer, and reading classes.

“It gives them an opportunity to get their homework done, so they don’t go home and immediately put on the television,” says Ms. Staley. “It gives them an opportunity to get themselves physically fit, to see and learn about different professions, and over all, I think it gives them a certain empowerment over their lives.”

Ms. Staley’s organization asks teachers to recommend average or below-average students to participate, and the girls must write an essay detailing why they would like to join.

In addition to the after-school programs, the foundation organizes a coed basketball league in the summer, and sponsors a community day in the fall when families congregate at a local park for food, music, games, and free health screenings. Ms. Staley’s next goal is to raise money to build a new neighborhood recreation center.

Even though Ms. Staley, 31, has a busy schedule between playing basketball and her off-season job as head coach of the women’s basketball team at Temple University, in Philadelphia, she tries to visit the two after-school programs in North Philadelphia at least once a week when she is in town. Often she brings her Temple players to volunteer. “I’m very much involved. I don’t want to be that athlete who just lends their name and keeps on moving,” says Ms. Staley.

For her efforts with the foundation, Ms. Staley has received several awards, including the 2000 American Express Entrepreneurial Spirit of the Year award, which earned her foundation a $10,000 donation from the company.

Ms. Staley says classwork is the most important part of the after-school programs. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Ms. Staley says she would rather help kids puzzle out a math problem than teach them passing skills on the court.

The program also stresses community service. The girls serve Thanksgiving meals to homeless people and gather toys for needy families at Christmas.

While students from local colleges and universities tutor the girls, Ms. Staley also nudges parents to help out once a month or run the toy drive. “It’s a great opportunity for strengthening the bond between mother and child, or father and child,” she says.

The organization’s programs cost around $100,000 last year. Nike, the sporting-goods company that Ms. Staley has a contract to promote, has contributed about $50,000 each year for the last four years, says Angelia Nelson, the foundation’s executive director. An annual auction raised $35,000 last year, and Ms. Staley donates $5,000 each year, plus some fees from speaking engagements and appearances.

The foundation also receives support from other athletes. The Tiger Woods Foundation contributed $7,500 last year. In addition, Ms. Staley’s Olympic teammates have all donated either time or money, she says. And after Andrea Stinson, Ms. Staley’s Charlotte Sting teammate, won the Buick Regal Player of the Game award last year, she designated Ms. Staley’s foundation to receive her $1,000 prize.

Ms. Staley is proud not only of the fund-raising success, but of the number of participants who return to volunteer after they have outgrown the charitable programs, including one girl who never missed a day during the two years she participated. “Once you have perfect attendance like that,” she says, “you have to know you are affecting their lives.”