30 Years Strong: DC SCORES’ Legacy at Anne Beers Elementary School

DC SCORES gamedays at Anne Beers Elementary School are legendary. 

The team is known throughout the league for an electric home game atmosphere. Spectators pack into every available space around the school’s grass field. The PTO makes a healthy profit from a snack stand positioned to catch families as they arrive. Latecomers who don’t snag a spot on the sidelines resign themselves to watching through the school’s chain-link fence.

Crowds like these are 30 years in the making. 

Beers, located in Ward 7’s Hillcrest neighborhood, was one of the first schools to participate in DC SCORES, joining the nonprofit’s soccer, poetry, and service-learning program in 1994, the year DC SCORES was founded. 

Over the past three decades, in partnership with Beers, DC SCORES has developed a close-knit community program that encourages young people to discover new passions, build their confidence, and give back to their neighborhoods. 

“[DC SCORES] is very much a constant interest, a constant, I would say, building of community in the very fabric of the school,” says Herras Howard, a special education teacher and DC SCORES coach at Beers. 

“It’s been a joy,” he says. “It’s been a joy.”

“Happy and Exciting”

Howard has coached DC SCORES at Beers since 2013, but he first encountered the program when he attended a DC SCORES summer camp as an elementary school student. 

The camp was the first time he’d been significantly exposed to soccer, a sport that has been played historically by wealthy, white families at the youth level in the United States. 

“Black schools, we don’t particularly pick up soccer first,” Howard explains. “So when you have these type of schools in predominantly urban, Black areas, it piques their curiosity.”

Howard quickly became a fan of the sport and now strives to pass on his enthusiasm to the young people he coaches. A combination of his passion and the fact that DC SCORES provides everything poet-athletes need to participate has meant that soccer has become the sport of choice for many Beers Cheetahs.

“They’re playing virtually all the time. Even without me, they would be playing at recess,” says Howard. 

First grader Dylan is a poet-athlete at Beers. He says that his afternoon DC SCORES practices are his favorite part of the school day. He reels off the names of the friends he’s made on the team: Avery, Zaire, Zyaire, Zalil, and his “bestie” CharlieRose. 

“We practice, and sometimes we even be on the same team, and we pass to each other. It’s fun and it makes us both emotional,” he says of playing with CharlieRose. “The emotions I feel at DC SCORES are happy and exciting.”

Family Legacy

DC SCORES provides a place for Beers students to have fun with friends every school day, while also contributing benefits to the entire school community. 

“We absolutely have a lot of parents here that now support DC SCORES, so it brings a lot of family engagement. The attendance has increased; our students are here. And just an overall sense of sportsmanship here at the school,” says Stacy Williams, Beers’ Out-of-School-Time Coordinator. 

Williams has served in her role for 15 years, half the time that DC SCORES has operated at Beers. She is unequivocal: DC SCORES is one of the most successful partnerships at the school.  “[DC SCORES] pours tons of funding into the program. Giving back to the kids and making sure that our children are getting what they need,” Williams says.

DC SCORES has also played an important role in her own family’s lives. Williams’ son, Myles, joined the program as a Beers third grader. Now, aged 20, he is coaching alongside Howard at his alma mater. 

The mentorship and ready-made community Myles found as a youngster in the program were critical, says Williams. Her son had alopecia as a child, and DC SCORES was a space where he was welcomed and gained confidence.

“Coach took him under his wing, and it was a way for him to build that camaraderie with his classmates and his peers as well,” says Williams. “It was just a bittersweet moment to see him grow and blossom into a coach.”

Serving the City

Myles is not the only Beers alum for whom DC SCORES has made a lasting impression. 

Natasha Dupee is a committed public servant who has dedicated her career to serving Washingtonians. She is the executive director of the Mayor’s Office on Women’s Policy and Initiatives and serves as the advisory neighborhood commissioner for D.C.’s single-member district 7E04.

Dupee began her public service career at 14, when she worked for D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. “She saw me in middle school and said, this girl knows how to use her words. I think that came from DC SCORES,” says Dupee. 

“When I think back to my elementary school experience, DC SCORES was the highlight,” says Dupee. The fifth-generation Washingtonian recalls a childhood defined by deep-rooted community. “You didn’t have to leave your community to experience love,” she says.

However, families did have to leave their neighborhood to access groceries, doctors, and emergency services. But at DC SCORES, Dupee says young people always had everything they needed. 

“One of my favorite things about being in DC SCORES was that we all got to wear a uniform. I get emotional thinking about it,” she recalls. 

“With DC SCORES, everyone got to be the same. We had the same shorts, we had the same top, and regardless if someone was experiencing homelessness or not, DC SCORES made sure we all look the same,” she says.

“Folks can bloom where they’re planted,” she says, “and being a poet-athlete was a hallmark of my identity.”

“Being a poet-athlete you realize that you have strength in taking a stance,”says Dupee. The DC SCORES poetry curriculum was where she first honed the public speaking skills she would later use as an advocate and representative for D.C. residents. 

“[I was] learning which words would be most decisive in a slam poetry competition but what words could move hearts and minds outside of a slam poetry experience, as well,” she shares.

Today, Dupee continues to be a proud Beers and DC SCORES alumna and is a regular at DC SCORES events. She is excited to see new generations of young people benefit from the same investment she received as a child. 

“I’m so excited to be a DC SCORES alum and see the program continue,” Dupee says. “It gives young people the opportunity to be heard and also be affirmed and know that they’re not alone.”