Our Mission

At OWLS, we engage, enrich, and inspire Chicago kids and communities through the power of lacrosse.

Together with our school partners, donors, coaches, and, of course, our student-athletes, Outreach With Lacrosse and Schools (OWLS) is bridging the opportunity gap for Chicago’s underserved neighborhoods. We do this through mentorship, academic support, enrichment experiences, and one of the greatest games on the planet

With programs supporting students from third grade through high school graduation and beyond, we work with schools, community centers, and corporate partners to help make Chicago’s communities healthy, safe, and connected to the resources that help them thrive.

Our History

Lacrosse & Learning—a match made in Chicago.

OWLS—Outreach With Lacrosse and Schools—was formed in 2011 with a simple goal: to combat an epidemic of physical inactivity and lack of quality enrichment programming in underserved Chicago schools and communities.

It wasn’t long before we discovered how much more our communities needed—and how much more we could help them.

Lacrosse is an ideal sport to help address stress, accelerate learning, and build critical life skills.

Over the years, we’ve added academic support, field trips, career development, informed coaching methods, and more to help maximize every minute of impact on our student-athletes. In just 11 years, we went from tutoring and training 10 student-athletes to becoming a full-service, fully-funded 501(c)3 nonprofit partnering with five schools and over 250 student-athletes per year across 20 of Chicago’s most challenged zip codes.

We serve each student-athlete by helping them create the academic self-efficacy, contribution, positive identity, self-management, and social skills necessary to thrive. We partner with schools in underserved communities to support student access and success, from 3rd grade through life.