The Inner-City Games were founded by Daniel Hernandez of the Hollenbeck Youth Center in 1991 as a way to build
self-confidence
Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a Latin word 'fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having ...
,
self-reliance
"Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false con ...
, and camaraderie among
inner-city
The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists someti ...
youth. The Games began in
East Los Angeles
East Los Angeles ( es, Este de Los Ángeles), or East L.A., is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 118,786, a drop of 6.1% from 2010, when it was 126,496. For statistical purpo ...
with more than 40,000 youths competing in athletic and academic competitions. In the wake of the
LA riots in 1992, Hernandez envisioned the Games expanding citywide and then nationally. Hernandez shared this vision with
Arnold Schwarzenegger who agreed to be the Games Executive Commissioner. In 1995, the National Inner-City Games Foundation was established. Under the national umbrella, the Games have expanded to 15 cities across the United States and involved more than one million young people across the country. In 2003, the Inner-City Games was renamed to After-School All-Stars; however in Los Angeles they remained the Inner-City Games.
References
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External links
Founding agency
Organizations based in Los Angeles
Community-building organizations
Charities based in California
After school programs
Sports charities