America SCORES is the most successful grassroots legacy projects of the 1994 World Cup. America SCORES emerged through the Legacy efforts of the 1994 FIFA World Cup. It grew from a single program serving girls in Washington, D.C. to an international network of programs across the United States and Canada serving 20,000 underserved boys and girls annually and 250,000 youth since its inception.

​

Our Origins:

 

Julie Kennedy, a former teacher at Marie Reed Learning Center, invented this complementary combination of activities in 1994 when she began working with a group of 15 girls with little to do after school. Ms. Kennedy learned that the team-centered relationships built on the soccer field translated into poetry workshops, and the development of teamwork and leadership prepared students to act as agents of change in their communities through service-learning projects.  ​

 

The program quickly expanded throughout DC, and in 1999 Kennedy began sites in Boston and Chicago, thus creating America SCORES, headquarters to 13 programs across the United States and Canada.