Holiday themed poem of the week!

Giving Thanks

A time for laughs,
A time for living,
A time for love,
And a time for giving.

Laughing brings joy,
Living brings peace,
Love brings families together,
And giving brings the world together.

Giving thanks shows you are grateful and care.

Victoria L., Age 10

Thanks to our staff and supporters!

Here at the National Office, we'd like to thank our staff for their hard work this year! They've all been incredibly busy with everything from leading soccer and poetry programming for our kids, coordinating and training volunteers for game days and community events, securing funding, keeping in close communication with donors, and regularly posting news and updates. Many thanks to all of them for being such an important part of the America SCORES family!

It's no small feat to keep the sites running smoothly, and we appreciate the time and effort they put into changing our kids' lives for the better every day.

Thanks to all of you, our students have blossomed into poet-athletes, displaying creativity, enthusiasm, and team spirit on the field, in the classroom, and on the Poetry Slam stage.

Congratulations on a successful season, and keep up the good work!

Spreading the word: ASCAP @ America SCORES!

For the third year in a row, the ASCAP foundation has provided artists for the ASCAP Songwriter Residency @ America SCORES. This year, the artists came to St. Louis, LA, and Atlanta. For three days, the artists came into classrooms and while collaborating on songs and film scores, taught SCORES students about songwriting and filmmaking (in LA).

At the end of the residency, recorded their co-written pieces together. This year's artists were songwriter SCORES students and ASCAP artists Alonzo Lee in St. Louis, songwriter Johntá Austin in Atlanta, and Composer Shawn K. Clement and animation filmmaker Roger Blonder in LA.

To view the complete press release about this year's program, click here.

With help from Sue Devine from ASCAP and the ASCAP artists, we have created a facebook fan page for the program, to display photos and videos from the current and past programs. We have also created a MySpace page where visitors can listen to our music, and a youtube channel to display our music videos.

Please spread the word about this great program. Thanks to ASCAP for their generous support!

Poem of the week!

Sounds of Soccer

The ball is rolling in plain sight
Swish! Zoom! Everybody is coming at the ball like termites.
Crash! A few people fell running to the ball
Hurry! Hurry! Everybody is coming!
Bump! More players had a great fall!
I made it. I thought
Whew! The ball hit the pole.
I almost scored in the wrong goal!
Everybody screams Noooooo!
When we were shaking hands
It started to rain
Drip! Drip! Is all that you can hear.
Thump! is the sound of the rain in my ear.
Wow! That was fun
Guess what?
We won!

Faizon, F. Age 9

Study says art education has measurable impact on youth!

A recent report by the Center for Arts Education takes a look at the relationship between arts education and New York City public high school graduation rates. In this and several past studies, students at risk of dropping out cite participation in the arts as their reason for staying in school.

Research by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has also shown that education in the arts has had a measurable impact on youth in deterring delinquent behavior and truancy problems while also increasing overall academic performance.

"The arts can help students become tenacious, team-oriented problem-solvers who are confident and able to think creatively. These qualities can be especially important in improving learning among students from economically disadvantaged circumstances."
- Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education

For the complete report, click here.