The upcoming August 10-11 weekend plays host to a 32-player squash tournament in New York, benefiting a great cause, and it’s just $100 to enter. Already sold on the idea? You can sign up for the tournament on ClubLocker here!!
Open Squash member and marketing guru Matt Poveromo has been working with the nonprofit, Kids N Culture, for a decade. So he decided to organize a squash tournament--with all proceeds benefitting Kids N Culture--because he's found the Open Squash community so helpful and generous to be a part of.
Kids N Culture, which is completely volunteer run, focuses on New York City high school students. It aims to close the opportunity gap because many New York students, despite being incredibly diverse, don't always get the opportunity to interact with other cultures firsthand.
"We stay in our community bubbles," Matt said. "But it's not enough to interact with another culture through media, books, movies, and so on. Travel and first-hand experience are the best ways to learn about other cultures, break down bias, challenge perceptions, learn and grow as a global citizen."
Kids N Culture has built an afterschool program with this in mind, preparing students to be more globally minded, with the curriculum culminating in a two-week trip to various places across the world. The nonprofit has hosted 29 trips with over 280 students, travelling 238,000 miles. They've gone to places like India, Europe, China, Thailand, Peru, Vietnam, Japan, Morocco, and the UK. Applications for 2025 just opened, with trips to Turkey and France if high school students want to apply. The deadline is October 4.
Matt has accompanied High School kids on five trips: To Alaska, India, Greece, the UK, and Spain. A trip to Greece included the Acropolis and Mount Olympus.
The trip to London happened just before the coronation of King Charles III, which was fascinating for the young people. And a trip to Spain was also muy bueno, he said.
"Many of our kids are Hispanic. In the U.S. their identity is viewed as a minority, and it's identified most readily through the language," Matt said. "But in Spain, Spanish is the predominant language and it's spoken by the majority. So you have all these kids who grew up thinking of themselves as minorities through their language, and now all of a sudden the majority is speaking their language, but the majority is also not Hispanic. There was a really interesting cultural identity thing going on and it was cool to see the kids open their eyes to it."
A trip to India was also fascinating because "it looks so chaotic from a foreigner's standpoint, going through the traffic, but then you notice, there’s not a single accident. It looks insane, but there is a rhyme to the reason," Matt said. "The young people were also very taken by this ideology in Indian culture that the guest is God. There is even a saying in Hindu: ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ - which roughly translates to 'A guest is akin to God. And just the openness of the culture and wanting to share it and how well received they were everywhere they went. In some places it even felt like they were celebrities."
Matt enjoyed the recent trip to the UK the most, he said, because the young people had been through some tough times with the Covid Pandemic, and he got to watch them relaxing, and learning from a new culture, and enjoying the moment, all in beautiful and historic surroundings.
"Students in general have got more wound up over the last decade—I guess it's just hard to be a kid these days," Matt said. "And these trips really help them to come out of their shells and enjoy themselves."
The upcoming tournament has two draws, a 4.0 and a 4.5 draw, with all genders included. Ratings are integrated with ClubLocker and the eventual winners will play a total of five games.
"It's not a 48-hour commitment," Matt said. "It's two days of about five hours per day, total. I'm telling people, 'come along, play some matches to get your rating up, have a great time, enjoy your evenings and support a great cause."
We couldn’t agree more. See you there! Matt also thanked Open Squash for donating the courts for the tournament, which we're happy to do. And remember: You can sign up for the tournament on ClubLocker here.