One Night One Goal Kicks Off DC SCORES 30th Anniversary Celebrations

DC SCORES began its 30th year in style last week with a record-breaking One Night One Goal!

On October 17, One Night One Goal returned to Audi Field, drawing its largest-ever crowd while also generating $550,000 for DC SCORES poet-athletes, the highest total brought in by a single DC SCORES fundraising event.

One Night One Goal has been a highlight of the DC SCORES calendar since its inception in 2018, but was made more special this year by its status as the kick-off event for DC SCORES’ 30th anniversary celebrations.

Founded in 1994 by a D.C. public school teacher, DC SCORES has served tens of thousands of young people in the District through its award-winning soccer, poetry, and service-learning programs, which are offered during out-of-school time.

Nearly 600 DC SCORES alumni, supporters, and staff from throughout DC SCORES’ history gathered at One Night One Goal, with each guest receiving a pin commemorating the decade in which they joined the organization.

One Night One Goal also brought together the six women who have led the organization through its 30 years of impact. During the event program, current DC SCORES Executive Director Katrina Owens invited her predecessors Bethany Rubin Henderson, Amy Nakamoto, Holly O’Donnell, Natalie Gordon, and DC SCORES founder Julie Kennedy on stage to bestow upon Kennedy the first-ever DC SCORES Legacy award.

Presenting Kennedy with a limited-edition soccer jersey designed by District-based multidisciplinary artist Trap Bob exclusively for DC SCORES’ 30th anniversary, Owens said the award was given “on behalf of the thousands of poet-athletes we serve, the many tens of thousands of others who have been impacted by [Kennedy’s] work, and a entire city forever changed for the better by what [Kennedy] started.”

Kennedy was not the only person to receive an accolade at One Night One Goal. Representatives from the Mayor’s Office on Women’s Policy and Initiatives presented DC SCORES with a citation from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser congratulating the organization on its 30th anniversary and sharing Bowser’s admiration for DC SCORES and One Night One Goal founding sponsor Enlightenment Capital ahead of the event.

Co-hosted by Enlightenment Capital founder Devin Talbott, Washington Spirit forward Ashley Hatch, and former D.C. United captain Steven Birnbaum, One Night One Goal was a star-studded affair that included live performances from America’s Got Talent semi-finalist Malik DOPE and DC SCORES’ own Chief of Arts and Culture Charity Blackwell.

Audience members also had the opportunity to mingle with Washington Spirit stars and bid on live and silent auctions items from some of the biggest sports and arts organizations in the DMV. But, despite the VIPs in the room, DC SCORES and its poet-athlete history remained the focus of the night, with youth poetry performances wowing the crowd from the Audi Field jumbotron and original poet-athlete writing featuring on bookmarks on every table.

It was this youth-centered legacy that award-winning writer and DC SCORES Board Member Clint Smith highlighted in his One Night One Goal closing remarks. He recalled “one of the most remarkable, inspiring experiences of [his] life” when he attended his first DC SCORES poetry slam: “[I saw] these young people step so fully into themselves and talk about…what they imagined as the possibilities for their lives.”

He finished by calling upon the audience to support DC SCORES’ goal to reach every Title I middle school in the city and all the elementary schools feeding into those middle schools. “It’s time to dig deep,” he said, “and invest in making D.C. a Poet-Athlete City.”