The Springboard Award

The 2007 Recipient of the Springboard Award is Make A Difference Youth Foundation!

Make A Difference Youth Foundation was founded in 1992 as a college bound organization for Chicago high school students. The organization was started to attempt to help inner-city youth gain an appreciation for education. The founder, Johnnie Jones, was a baseball coach in the parks and noticed that many of the kids had limited academic skills. Kids with talent received a great deal of attention until they reached the “age limit”. Afterwards, those kids had no where to go and nothing to do. They were not prepared academically to move on to the next level and were left to walk the streets.