On Friday, a group of first through fifth graders from the Boys and Girls Club of Hesperian Elementary were provided an opportunity to come to CSU East Bay to tour the campus and play multiple sports coached by CSUEB student volunteers.

“For this particular event a lot of these kids have never been to a college campus before,” said East Bay Program Associate Kate Shepard who works with Coaching Corps functions through college chapters of the organization. “They would never think that college was a possibility for them maybe they have never been talked to about college.”

Derek Volk, a CSUEB senior, started last quarter to become a Coaching Corps chapter and this quarter has become one as well as a club on campus.

“I had to do it for my major,” said Volk. “I am a recreation major and we had to reach out to potential organizations. It was an assignment to reach out to organizations and this is the one I found, I stuck with it because [Kate] responded and I really liked it, their idea and their mission.”

Coaching Corps is an organization that partners with schools that have sports programs and after school programs such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America to help lower income children have the opportunity to participate in sports.

“My main goal was to create the club here on campus now we can get the funding that we need,” said Volk. “Once it got created the goal was to put on an event for the Boys and Girls Club. Before I graduated I wanted to create the structure here on the campus and hopefully this event can go on every year.”

The group of first through fifth graders got to participate in softball, football, dodgeball, volleyball and soccer, which many of the children had never played before.

“The kids get a chance to see that it is possible just by being here. I feel that they know they can one day be here and they are very excited whenever they get a chance to get outside of their bubble,” said Volk. “I feel it gives them a chance to see there are options for their future.”

When asked what the children get out of events like this, Volk was quick to respond with his opinion.

“A lot  of them don’t have an opportunity to play at all,” explained Volk. “For a lot of the kids this is their first time actually playing sports that they want to play. They definitely learn team building and working together. It’s not all about winning, but they learn lessons through just a simple game of dodgeball.”

The children from the Boys and Girls Club of Hesperian Elementary got the opportunity to get rid of their preconceived notions of what life in the East Bay and Hayward is like.

“They got out of the bus and were just amazed,” said Grace Barriga, CSUEB alumni and Unit Director for the Boys and Girls Club at Hesperian Elementary. “A lot of them didn’t know we had a university right around the corner.

“A lot of them don’t know college is an option for them. Just by them getting a chance to walk over here from the science building and experience just a little bit of this college campus is going to be very impactful for them. They have been waiting for this field trip for months. They couldn’t wait and couldn’t be happier.”

Events like this are what Coaching Corps hopes to continue to do in the future all over the country.

Now in 27 cities throughout California, Boston, Atlanta and soon Colorado, Coaching Corps is a group of volunteer coaches that helps children participate in sports and ultimately end up playing the role of a mentor to children who might not have the same opportunities as other children who have access to various sports programs.

Founded by Walter Haas, who when his family owned the Oakland A’s, saw a glaring problem in the community and an opportunity to help.

“Haas saw through ownership of the A’s how sports could change the life of a child,” said Sheilagh Polk, the program director who deals with the communications aspect of Coaching Corps. “It was also a realization that in wealthier or middle income communities parents were taking their kids to little league, club sports and all of those compared to lower income communities where access to those kind of programs are limited.”

Coaching Corps was originally formed as an organization that provided grants to schools to hire coaches. They have now transformed into an organization that trains and partners with other organizations and universities to help start a movement where kids, regardless of their disadvantages, have an opportunity to play sports and get the benefits that goes along with that.

“Our complete focus is on eliminating disparity for kids in low income communities,” said Polk. “So we don’t send our coaches to higher or middle income communities because either their parents have the ability to coach or their parents have the ability to hire the resources they need to get their kids coached. So for us to partner with a program it has to be serving at least a minimum of 50 percent kids in low income communities.”

Coaching Corps’ ultimate goal is not only to help children through sports and coaching but to start something much larger.

“We have really shifted our frame to building a movement, a movement that spreads across the country,” said Polk. “For us, its not just about sports for the sake of sports but utilizing sports to interrupt conditions of poverty and impacting crime, high school drop and child obesity.”