61 Chess Clubs across 32 NC Counties

Happy National Chess Day!

As a chess nonprofit, National Chess Day seems like a good time to reflect on our plans and progress. When we launched in the summer of 2019, we set a goal of helping NC schools and community organizations start 100 chess clubs and, so far, through our Game Changer Program, we have helped them establish 61 chess clubs across 32 NC counties. Thank you for your support and for telling interested schools and libraries about us!

During the pandemic, we helped several of these clubs continue to meet online. In our most recent year, 317 students completed 2,109 lessons, played 21,965 games, and attempted 41,698 puzzles through the ChessKid accounts we provided. We also organized 49 ChessKid and 24 US Chess-rated tournaments for these clubs. We applied and were accepted for a US Chess Federation program for Title I schools to provide additional resources to help a Wake county school start a chess program.

If you would like to start a chess club at your NC school, library, or community organization, please apply for one of our grants. This year we will continue to provide chess sets, instructor guides and workbooks, and ChessKid accounts to help organizations establish chess clubs in NC.

We will organize weekly ChessKid tournaments and other events to enable students from these clubs to play each other.

Someone recently donated a 25-inch giant chess set which we plan to use at events with our clubs.

We have also received donations of gently used chess books which we will provide to NC libraries with chess clubs.

Thank you, again, for your support!