The word spread about the value of the game and each year we have grown to accommodate more schools. During the past two years we have sent teachers on a weekly basis to dozens of urban schools where they have worked with thousands of students. We also have assisted chess programs where parents and teachers have organized the clubs. Schools we have helped in the recent past include:

Anne Beers Beauvoir Birney Anthony Bowen Booker T. Washington PCS Bruce Monroe Capital City PCS Clark Cleveland H.D. Cooke Draper Emery Gage-Eckington Garfield Gibbs Green Hyde Janney Kenilworth Key Academy PCS Kimball Lafayette Martin Luther King Maury Miner Moten Nalle Orr Oyster Patterson Paul Payne Plummer Powell Rudolph Seaton SEED Academy Shadd Simon Shaed Slowe Stanton Ludlow Taylor M.C. Terrell Thomson Tyler Van Ness Wheatley Whittier JO Wilson Winston

Mrs. Williams learned chess along with her students at J.O. Wilson Elementary School

For four years we volunteered our services in directing the Martin Luther King Jr./Kimball Elementary School Chess Tournament. That tournament, held at Kimball Elementary School (for several years the champions of the District) attracts schools from throughout the District as well as schools from suburban Maryland and Virginia.

We provided financial assistance for financially-disadvantaged players to participate in nationally-ranked tournaments and occasionally provide opportunities for them to meet other chess champions, including the World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov, and the champion of Nigeria, Oladapo Adu.

We helped Stanton Elementary stage its first chess tournament which attracted more than 70 players from a dozen schools east of the Anacostia River. We organized several matches and tournaments among the schools throughout the city in which we taught chess classes. We provided assistance to some students to participate in our chess camps so that they could hone their skills and receive individual attention from our experienced teachers.

We reach young people in difficult circumstances, too. For years we ran after-school and weekend chess clubs in four D.C. public housing developments: East Capitol Dwellings, Edgewood Terrace, Garfield Terrace and Kelly-Miller/LeDroit. Several of the children from those programs learned chess quite well, and one young man from Garfield Terrace came with us to the national chess championships.

In addition, when the public schools failed to open one fall, we joined with a consortium of community groups to teach chess (along with reading, soccer and tennis) to children at the Shaw Recreation Center.

For eight years we ran the D.C. Public Schools Championship and last year we created the D.C. Closed Scholastic Championship. We also send people to participate in the Sumner School Museum Family Night and the Urban League's Family Day. In 2000, we began the Anacostia Chess League.

High schools participate in the Metro Area Chess League and students are welcome at our Sunday chess lessons for teenagers.