By Joyce Lewandowski
As part of the Vision 2020 Youth Education Initiative sponsored by Wells Fargo, the Vision 2020 team hosted the 11th annual Philly Girls Play Chess Tournament, which took place on Tuesday, May 14, at Drexel University's Creese Student Center.
The annual tournament is organized by After School Activities Partnerships (ASAP), a Vision 2020 Allied Organization, and it included more than 120 of Philadelphia’s young female chess players from ASAP’s Philadelphia Youth Chess Challenge.
Girls of all ages exhibited their skills in an informal tournament offering sections for beginner, intermediate and advanced players. This initiative’s mission is to increase the number of chess-playing girls, motivated by statistics that reveal that chess-playing contributes to strategic thinking and often results in pursuit of STEM interests, and that the number of girls playing chess drops dramatically after fourth grade. Philly Girls Play Chess aims to recruit new — and maintain current — female players (1st through 12th grades) to ensure that girls share in the benefits of chess.
The tournament was featured on 6ABC and WHYY. Check out each story below!