Most Valuable Kids’ Program Director Maggie Klee stands in her office next to one of her favorite thank you cards from the children. 

For Kelsey Nelson, growing up as a “Most Valuable Kid” led to a passion she would never have had otherwise. She spent countless evenings cheering on her favorite Washington sports teams alongside peers from underprivileged backgrounds.

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“It’s because of the Most Valuable Kids organization that I was actually able to go to my first professional sports game and I will never forget it,” Nelson said. “I think my first game experience really stuck with me because I was seeing something in person that I only thought I could see on TV.”

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Most Valuable Kids is a nonprofit organization operating in three cities around the country. Its flagship chapter is in Washington and has served boys and girls under 18 through sports for 15 years, working with various recipient agencies.

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Maggie Klee, the program director for the Washington chapter, said the organization chooses recipient agencies registered as 501(c)(3) nonprofits or public schools where most of the students live below the poverty line.

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Rosalyn Overstreet-Gonzalez is the president of a recipient agency called DC Babe Ruth Baseball. Having worked with Most Valuable Kids for the better part of 15 years, Overstreet-Gonzalez has only good things to say.

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“It’s very, very professionally run. It amazes me how sometimes they’ll have dozens, if not hundreds, of tickets that they need to distribute,” said Overstreet-Gonzalez. “They do a great job of making sure everything goes smoothly.”

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The model is simple. When season ticket holders can’t attend a game or when there are unsold tickets for a game, teams donate those tickets to the organization. From there, the ticket opportunities are loaded into a database, where the various recipient agencies can claim them for the communities they work with.

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Bryan Floyd, who works for Monumental Sports, helps facilitate ticket distribution from the team side and sees the organization as a great partner. “Everybody is easy to work with - they make things easy for us,” Floyd said. “There’s a lot of times that they actually help us.”

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Big teams such as the Washington Nationals, Wizards, Redskins and Capitals as well as D.C. United are frequent donators. But other teams such as the Washington Valor and Mystics - as well as teams from Georgetown University and University of Maryland, College Park - also donate many tickets.

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The various teams that work with the organization allow for multiple opportunities for participants to attend - often more than twice a year. Klee said that over 22,000 tickets were donated across 79 recipient agencies in 2017 alone.

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While the model is simple, the impact is much more. For those that would never be able to experience these events on their own, getting tickets is invaluable.

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Nelson is grateful for the organization and credits it for her passion for sports. Today, she is a sports reporter in the Washington area - a career she said she wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.

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“It’s really a place that I could call home, at the arena, through making a career as a sports reporter,” she said. “It enabled me to see new professions and a new way to look at things and a new way to look at my life and what I wanted to do forever.”

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For many of the children that get to go to the games, the people they see make a big difference. Representation matters for children and seeing the many careers and professional pathways at sporting events can open a child’s mind to the possibilities.

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“And maybe [it’s] not the player, but the person who is doing the announcing, the people that are on the bench taking care of the players, even so far as to see the management, the ownership,” said Overstreet-Gonzalez. “The opportunity for the kids to see themselves in an area or an arena other than what they know, I just find that to be the biggest dividend.”

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For Carmen Garner, the parent of a recipient, seeing his son enjoy the games is special and he views these opportunities as unrivaled. “My son has experienced more than I have, as a kid - like a triple times more - because of MVK,” said Garner.

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For some of the games, families are able to go together. This kind of bonding experience is a great way to build stronger families.

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Nelson said these family events were always a highlight. “For my parents, it made them happier to know that they were able to go to a sporting event with me that they couldn’t provide me, but they knew it would impact my growth and development,” she said.

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The organization has fostered passion for sports and city pride among children who are underprivileged. But the years of its operation haven’t been easy. Funding is tight and public awareness of its efforts is limited.

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The executive director of the organization, Jessica Baggetta, said these challenges have existed since the beginning. Even so, she remains optimistic.

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“It’s not a barrier, I wouldn’t say, it’s just a challenge that we’re working on overcoming right now, so that we can increase awareness, increase programming and increase availability to more children,” said Baggetta.

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In the future, Most Valuable Kids is looking to expand its operations. It is working to fundraise for logistical expenses, such as transportation for the participants and meal vouchers for eating at the events.

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“We hold an annual auction, we do a golf tournament, and we have one big community event, which we call the combine,” said Klee.

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The combine allows participants to spend a day playing games and training their athletic abilities; it includes appearances by Washington area athletes and mascots.

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Klee said that the organization is also looking to go beyond sports and towards cultural and educational events. “We’ve talked about how not every kid is into sports, so what are some other things we could do? Like a theater event and different kinds of things,” she said.

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But Klee knows Most Valuable Kids holds a unique place in what it does. She said, “We provide free, easy programming that the kids actually want to do. … Sports really are a great venue for social good.”

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