Leckie Lions Begin Design FC Service Learning Project
Poet-athletes will design a jersey that celebrates their school and neighborhood culture.
Middle school poet-athletes at Leckie Education Campus are embarking on a new foray into the world of sports apparel thanks to a partnership between DC SCORES and Design FC.
Design FC works with young people after school to promote creative thinking, self-expression, and autobiographical storytelling through sports jersey design. In partnership with Design FC, the DC SCORES team at Leckie will create a jersey representing who they are, where they’re from, and the messages they want to share with the world.
The Leckie Lions will design the shirt as part of their DC SCORES service learning curriculum. The poet-athletes hope the design will celebrate the culture of their Ward 8 school.
Leckie has participated in DC SCORES since 2013 and offers programming for all three age groups served by the program (Juniors, Elementary, and Middle School). The DC SCORES team has grown into a community hub at the school, with multiple sibling groups participating in the program, which provides afterschool soccer, poetry, and service learning sessions to more than 3,500 young people.
For more than a decade, this tight-knit team culture has translated into meaningful community service-learning impact. “Our service learning is one of the things that we pride ourselves on,” says Curtis Jordan, a DC SCORES coach at Leckie.
In previous years, the team contributed to Leckie’s Closet, a school-wide resource that collects critical clothing items like winter jackets, shoes, and hats for local families who need them. The team has helped transform Leckie’s Closet into a key part of school culture, and will continue to support the initiative alongside the Design FC jersey design.
Leckie will work with Design FC staff to create the jersey in dedicated sessions to build teamwork, self-reflection, and creative skills that will run through the DC SCORES spring season.
This is not the first time DC SCORES poet-athletes have worked with Design FC. In 2023, the DC SCORES team at Seaton Elementary School created a jersey celebrating the diversity of the school community, while last year, poet-athletes at KIPP WILL Academy participated in Design FC’s Youth Creative Collective, which brings together young people from different cities around the world to collaborate on a jersey.
“DC SCORES gives young people a platform to share their voices, and our partnership with Design FC gives poet-athletes another creative outlet to express themselves,” said Brian Anderson, DC SCORES’ Corporate Partnerships Officer. “It has been incredible to see these youth celebrate their teammates and communities through art and watch them develop new skills in the supportive environment created by our wonderful partner, Design FC.”
