During the July 4th weekend in Chicago at the Feinberg Theater, the Urban Youth Racing School made an announcement about their program in collaboration with Mercy Home for Boys & Girls. The Urban Youth Racing School is branching out from their Philadelphia roots into Chicago to empower and motivate local youth through motorsports.
The primary aim of this program is to offer up opportunities to marginalized youth of Chicago including both learning and hands-on experiences in racing, engineering and technology. Through the world of motorsports, UYRS hopes to spark interest and foster skills in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) among individuals, specifically those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Rolling out spoke with Michelle Martin, COO of UYRS to delve deeper into this initiative.
Why is it important for you to set up the Urban Youth Racing School in Chicago?
We think that it’s important to set up a racing school in Chicago because we feel that the students in Chicago would not only benefit but deserve the opportunity to be exposed to the same thing that the students in Philadelphia are.
What would you say is the best thing about the Urban Youth Racing School?
The best thing about the Urban Youth Racing School is everything. It’s hard to pick apart. We have students that don’t know what to do when they first come in. Most of them have no clue what motorsports is. They don’t know what NASCAR is or any type of motorsport. They have no clue. So, when they come in and they learn about all the opportunities within this sport where they can make family sustaining wages it’s a game changer.
There are so many soft skills; like networking, understanding how to take control of your future. One thing that we’re big on is creating pathways for them to go.We’re exposing them to a certain type of career opportunity. We’re not just going to expose you to it and let you go. We’re going to expose you to it, introduce you to that pathway, whether it’s school, whether it’s a four year university, whether it’s a two year certificate degree. We understand that not all students want to go to a four year college. We get that. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. We introduce them to all of these different opportunities. I think that is the best thing about the Urban Youth Racing School.
They’ve called us as the underground railroad into motor sports. We’ve never had an opportunity as a community to get into the sport. Anthony has pretty much broken that glass ceiling to make sure that our children are exposed to the sport.
Who is the ideal candidate for the Urban Youth Racing School?
The ideal candidate is a young man or woman that is in the street who doesn’t have hope for themselves. When you don’t have hope for yourself, you’re not going to have empathy for another. We want to give them help. We want to have them understand that they can be all that they can be and they just have to put a little work into it. If they have someone that will take them by the hand, introduce them to the opportunity and keep pushing them through to the opportunity it makes a difference.
