Dreams for Kids's Extreme Recess Program gives DC area youth with physical and developmental challenges the opportunity to participate in sports, often for the very first time. Adaptive sporting events from snow and water-skiing, to martial arts and baseball, allow youth to realize a physical potential previously unimagined while having the time of their life!

Participating in sports with peers increases and reinforces a child’s positive belief in their own abilities, building immeasurable confidence and self-esteem. At a base level, recreational activities are vital to a child’s health. Extreme Recess events help to improve respiratory capacity, circulation, heart rate, muscle tone, and, consequently, their quality of life.

This project allows one youth and his or her family to participate in a year of Extreme Recess programs, including up to 10 different adaptive sports clinics with local DC-area professional athletics teams. Support this project, and empower youth with disabilities the confidence, self-respect, and motivation to seize each and every day.

There are 5,000 kids undergoing some form of physical therapy in DC public schools and Dreams for Kids is the only vetted adaptive athletic provider. There are no consistent adaptive athletic offerings in DC. Extreme Recess offers consistency and a variety of sport options all while creating a unique space for a community that has been isolated for too long.

Everyday life for Extreme Recess participants is secluded with few opportunities for them to engage with their peers and participate in sports regularly. Extreme Recess extends to the youth that come from a combination of many types of communities. It is within these communities that the isolation occurs. Dreams for Kids is able to emphasize to youth who are disabled that they have the opportunity to become a part of a new community that focuses on their needs and potential.

Community member details not available yet.

Direct Impact of Your Project

Extreme Recess provides adaptive sports for a community that otherwise would be inaccessible to these activities. Extreme Recess helps to maintain activities to a consistent level that allows youth who are disabled, the accessibility to play sports and gain confidence.

This project allows one youth participant to attend a year's worth of Extreme Recess clinics and gain:

-increased physical abilities
-more positive outlook on physical strengths
-connecting and forming relationships with their peers and members of the community
-overall increased feelings of positivity and higher self-confidence

Extended Impact on Your Partner Community

When we engage a child in the Extreme Recess program, we are actually engaging an entire family.

Extreme Recess clinics provide a platform to build children's confidence, enable kids to make new friends and also help families identify new programmatic providers who can help their children stay engaged in adaptive athletics.

Raising a child with a disability can be extremely difficult, especially when you lack some of the basic resources need to do so. Our programs give our kids new opportunities to develop and enables our parents to better access the resourced they need to integrate their children into society.

For every child engaged, a whole family is impacted, including:

-increasing awareness of adaptive settings for youth with disabilities
-increasing number of participants, volunteers, and organization outreach
-providing families with resources for adaptive sports