Empower 200 Girls in NYC with Education and Sport

Our 2022-23 year was all about student impact created through an exciting array of educational and skating opportunities, overflowing community events, and lots of filming! From January on, Imagine Entertainment was a constant presence in our day-to-day programming, events, and competitions, filming for our 6-part docuseries scheduled to air on the world's largest streaming platform in early 2024.

Highlights this year included three synchronized skating teams successfully competing in five competitions, a robust Spoken Word performance at our gala, and three exceptional live events – the Soul on Ice community Winter Skating Party, Girls Glide Globally Ice Shows, and the Denise Hicklin Awards Ceremony at Riverside Church. Career Week was also a wonderful learning experience for students to explore various professional environments, like Macy's, the NBA, a federal courthouse, and Columbia University's engineering program, and offered the opportunity to engage with an exhilarating alumnae panel.

Our program welcomed 157 students at the start of the academic year, and for the first time in several years, we had a waitlist of interest in the program. This increased demand is likely to further grow in the year ahead as our docuseries goes global! 50% of students served this year were Black, 22% Hispanic/Latino, and 24% multiracial; 93% came from extremely low income to moderate income families.

We're proud of our skating teams, who earned six medals in their competitions, including two gold medals. We introduced a new competition team for our youngest skaters, Snowplow Sam, and a performance team that wowed audiences at events from the Bryant Park Tree Lighting to the World University Games, held in the USA for the first time in 30 years!

88% of students maintained an A or B average in their academics this year! Throughout the season, FSH offered four curricular options to increase literacy, communications, and writing skills:
Black Women on Ice
Students learned about specific Black Women figure skaters, including Mabel Fairbanks and Surya Bonaly. Through Root Cause Trees, SMART demands, and KWL charts, students learned about gender and racial equity in sports and discussed how programs like FSH help to change the narrative.

Environmental Protection
Students drew connections between natural resources and the work of student scientists to protect our planet. They also presented the specific impacts humans have on the environment. Students learned about carbon footprints and what choices they can make in their everyday lives to preserve our resources.

Civic Engagement
Students explored the meaning and purpose of civic engagement through various supplemental articles and artifacts. Students used a root cause tree to create a civic engagement campaign which included SMART goals and presented to their peers and teachers.

My World, My Story
To better support students in their writing and speaking skills, FSH developed a curriculum where students explored four different themes and created a speech about their passions through research and peer/teacher feedback. Students created a TedTalk rubric, which supported three rounds of peer and teacher feedback, and presented their final speech in the “My Story, My World” showcase.

100% of our high school seniors matriculated into college, with 2 receiving full scholarships and with a total scholarship offering worth $200,000. Seniors become alumnae at graduation and will now be served through our new Pipeline 2 Power initiative, which offers college and career support until age 30.

Finally, we sent 11 FSH student ambassadors to South Africa for the experience of a lifetime in July on our first cultural exchange. Teaching girls in surfing and boxing organizations to skate and learning about the history of South Africa has been a remarkable opportunity for these young women!

Donors make all of this possible. We are 97% donor-supported, so truly this all happens only because of your generosity. Thank you!