Hey New Yorkers … help youth bridge

I recently received an email from Mila Antonova.  She is trying to promote youth bridge in New York but she has a problem.  The ACBL Educational Foundation provided a grant of $2000 but she still is $5000 short of the money needed for their plans.

There is a wonderful video of Mila teaching on utube.  She describes the video with this quote.  “Good sex is like good Bridge: if you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.” – Mae West. I want share my passion and explain why do I think that bridge is awesome game.

Mila teaches

Please go to their fundraising  webpage and make a contribution.  You don’t have to be from New York.  You just need to love bridge and New York bagels.

According to their website the money is for

– Supplies, rent, transportation, and food for an October 2011 youth program.

– Expenses for twice annual Manhattan youth tournament

– Marketing and promotion of bridge to young people

– The creation of an online bridge tutorial

Unfortunately at the moment the donations are not tax deductible but they are looking into that.

There is a host of material including posters and detailed lesson plans available for download on her site.  How generous is that?

Want to set up your own youth bridge classes?  She has a document which helps you to “sell” the idea of the course at your local school.  Here is an example of some of that material.

Barrier: Inaccurate perceptions of bridge as

ª      Too complicated for the average user

ª      An “old peoples” game

ª      Related to, or consisting of, gambling

Solution: Brand bridge as both a fun and educational activity

Here are some strengths for chosing bridge as an extracurricular activity

Strengths:

• Bridge has been proven to improve multiple standardized test scores.
• Bridge is a competitive game that students can play with their peers.
• Bridge prepares children for real life challenges: Students learn discipline, work in a team, work with a partner, plan, create a strategy, deal with failure, etc.
• Bridge has the possibility to teach many teachers from several schools in one place, which reduces cost and will help achieve a minimum number of players.
• There is the possibility of creating networks of bridge clubs at schools.
• Many retired people could be Bridge Coach Assistant volunteers in exchange for free lessons.