Agape Sports Camp

“I loved watching a love for sports develop in the children I worked with."

Background Information

Mimi Bourdeaux, of Atlanta, Georgia, attended the Fall 2014 semester of the Alzar School.  When she was asked to identify an issue in her home community, she immediately looked toward the problems the children of the non-profit organization Agape face.  Agape is an organization in Atlanta that aids kids from families under the line of poverty and works to break the poverty “cycle” by working to build respectful and responsible young children.  Mimi had worked with Agape many times previously with her mom through her charity group National Charity League (NCL) and had noted the problem that many of the children lacked adequate physical activity.   This is a problem that many people in Atlanta face, and Mimi felt that addressing this issue with the group Agape would be incredibly beneficial especially as Mimi has played soccer all her life and experienced the benefits.  She acted upon this by creating a three-day sports camp with Agape’s summer camp called “Camp Jumpstart.”

“I knew how great exercise made me feel, so I wanted to give the children of Agape the opportunities to get active.”
– Mimi Bourdeaux

Implementation of the Project

Preparing for the sports camp, Mimi began contact with two NCL liaisons for Agape.  Turia Gumpert, one of the liaisons, became specifically interested in the sports camp and began working closely with Mimi to make it all happen.  They set up a station for “Agape Sports Camp” at the NCL Philanthropy Fair, where NCL members could sign up to participate in different philanthropies.  “Agape Sports Camp” got a great response from NCL girls and had many people sign up to help with Mimi’s project.  Mimi and Turia exchanged many emails and phone calls to begin planning the camp, and met with Beau Harris, the head of Agape.  He was ecstatic to hear their plans of a three-day sports camp with one day of soccer, one of basketball, and one of dodge ball and kickball.

“What was so amazing about this whole process was how every member of my action team and everyone we worked with was so dedicated to their jobs and the children of Agape.The staff at Agape really has a passion for helping benefit these children’s lives.”
– Mimi Bourdeaux

Results of the Project

After three days of sports camp, Mimi and her team left the Agape kids sweaty and smiling.  Beau Harris asked the children of Agape at the end of the last day of camp what they had learned from sports camp that week.  Sweaty hands holding cold water bottles raised and kids explained what they had gained from the experience.  The kids noted that they had learned about patience, perseverance, teamwork, sportsmanship, and hard work.  They also explained that they had also learned technical soccer and basketball skills.  Mimi’s team worked with a total of 61 kids within those three days and contributed 98.25 hours in total to this project.

“I loved watching a love for sports develop in the children I worked with.  It was incredibly rewarded and was something I could really relate to.  Sweat, hard-breathing, and smiles were something I could look forward to seeing each day.”
– Mimi Bourdeaux

What’s Next

Mimi will graduate from The Lovett School in 2016 and will continue challenging herself educationally as well as a leader.  She will continue to work with Agape and NCL throughout her senior year.  Her friend also has ideas to create a mentor/mentee program with the kids of Agape throughout the next school year and Mimi is very interested in becoming a part of this.  She has been working with the National Charity League all summer and is going to continue with NCL and athletic activity in her future.