Mark Indermaur chess grants, chess parents

Sponsoring Castle Chess Camp!

Through our Aditya Nicholas Dias Memorial Fund, we are pleased to sponsor Castle Chess Camp, which is held annually at Emory University in Atlanta. The 2025 camp had 120 campers from 22 states plus Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Their average US Chess rating was 1750, and 21 students had ratings over 2000.

Aditya, like all former Castle campers, loved chess. He enjoyed making friends at camp whom he would later see at tournaments around the country. He loved learning more about the game from the experienced instructors and then sharing that with his friends and family back home.

Chess was an integral part of his short life, so his family established this memorial fund to honor Aditya’s passion for chess and to help more students benefit from the game. Through this sponsorship, we look forward to enabling more students to enjoy the Castle Camp experience – especially those with limited financial resources.

Mark Indermaur Chess clubs, chess grants, library chess, Programs

116 Chess Clubs across 46 NC Counties!

Thank you for your contributions and for telling schools and community organizations about our Game Changer Program, which provides grants of chess club starter kits and support!

Together, we have helped 116 schools and community organizations in 46 NC counties start chess clubs and experience the benefits of chess! Since we met the original goal we set in 2019 of helping 100 NC schools and community organizations start chess clubs, our new goal is to help these groups start a chess club in each of NC’s 100 counties.

We especially thank the contributors to our Aditya Nicholas Dias Memorial Fund. Aditya loved teaching his family, friends, classmates, and fellow scouts how to play chess. Your donations have enabled us to continue Aditya’s passionate efforts and spread his love for chess to 15 more schools, four senior centers, and two scout camps in the past year.

A visually impaired student wanted to join one of the new school clubs, so we provided them a special chess set and additional resources. “It was magical!” described the teacher as she shared the day her visually impaired student first played with her friends.

The senior centers are teaching chess classes, and two are holding tournaments. They tell us that the main reason their members want to learn chess is to play with their grandchildren.

The scout camps are teaching the chess merit badge, and one held weekly tournaments.

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

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

Thank you, again, for your support!

Meredith W. Indermaur adult chess, Chess clubs, chess grants

Empowering NC Senior Centers: Launching Chess Clubs with Cognitive and Social Benefits

Did you know that August 21 is National Senior Citizens Day? Although we’re not quite ready to say goodbye to spring and usher in the dog days of summer, we’re already celebrating the chess achievements of older Americans who are enjoying the benefits of the game at some of our local senior centers. 

“Challenging the brain sustains the brain,” says Dr. Gerald M. Levitt. While we know that board games are good for cognitive stimulation, the health benefits of chess are in a league of their own. “Lifestyle Enrichment in Later Life and Its Association with Dementia Risk,” a 2023 article in JAMA, reports that “the cognitive stimulation from [playing chess] can increase resilience against brain pathologies by increasing the number of neurons, enhancing synaptic activity, and permitting higher efficiency in using brain networks.”

In fact, playing chess lowers the risk of dementia even more than reading does due to its trifecta combination of logical reasoning, critical thinking, and social interaction. And, according to the American Psychological Association, playing chess also decreases depression and anxiety in older adults. To that end, US Chess has partnered with Grouper, a Medicare Advantage benefit which may extend your membership to US Chess for a year for free. Read more here.

Northern Wake Senior Center (NWSC) in Wake Forest, the first senior center to apply for our Game Changer program, has leveraged our grant to start a chess club, offer classes, and even host tournaments. Brian, a member of the Center who has taught three beginner and one intermediate class so far, said that one of the main reasons his students want to learn the game is so they can play with their grandkids. Over the past year the Center has hosted six tournaments open to all ages. In March, 8 and 12-year old chess prodigies participated with the seniors, and April’s tournament found 22 folks taking up the challenge. Brian also said that the NWSC is currently considering hosting the 2025 NC Super Senior Tournament. 

If you’d like to start a chess club at your NC Senior Center or retirement community, consider applying for one of our grants. 

Mark Indermaur chess grants, chess merit badge, outdoor chess

Supporting Chess in Scouting

We are excited to support our first Scouting organization, the Occoneechee Council, which serves scouts and their families in twelve counties in central North Carolina. We provided chess sets and instructional materials to the Council, so they can offer chess merit badge courses in their summer programs at Camp Durant in Carthage and during merit badge universities throughout the year.

Since 2019, we have helped schools, libraries, and community organizations across North Carolina start chess clubs through our Game Changer Program.

If you would like to start a chess program in your NC Scout Council or community organization, please apply for one of our grants. If you would like to support our efforts, please consider making a donation. You could designate it for our Aditya Nicholas Dias Memorial Fund, as Aditya loved chess and scouting.

Mark Indermaur Chess clubs, chess grants, library chess, Programs

95 Chess Clubs across 41 NC Counties!

Thank you for your contributions and for telling schools and libraries about our Game Changer Program which provides grants of chess club starter kits and support!

Together, we have helped 95 NC schools and community organizations in 41 NC counties start chess clubs and experience the benefits of chess! We have also helped one school in Virginia and another in Louisiana start chess clubs when leaders of our clubs moved there.

We are very close to reaching the original goal we set in 2019 of helping NC schools and community organizations start 100 chess clubs.

Thank you also to Chess in the Schools for recognizing us with the inaugural Andy Lerner Award for Excellence in Chess Education. This award enables us to support more chess programs, and the publicity around the award is helping us reach more schools and libraries!

During the past year, we supported new school clubs on Cape Hatteras, new library clubs in several mountain counties, our first senior center chess program, and a chess club at a Boys & Girls Club. One of our school clubs made the local news. Through our Aditya Dias Memorial Fund we also supported the NC and SC K-12 Championships.

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

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

Thank you, again, for your support!

Mark Indermaur Chess clubs, chess grants

Grants to Give ChessKid to Every Student in 100 NC Schools

We are partnering with ChessKid.com* to give 100 schools in North Carolina free ChessKid Gold accounts for all their students in the 2023-2024 school year.

Since we have 100 counties in NC, our goal is to have a school in each county receive one of these grants. This will help tens of thousands of children learn how to play chess and bring the benefits of chess clubs to every corner of our state.

For more information and to apply for one of these grants, please read this ChessKid article. The application deadline is June 30, 2023 or until 100 schools are selected.

* ChessKid.com is the scholastic extension of Chess.com – the #1 online chess site. ChessKid is dedicated to being a safe place for kids to learn and play chess. ChessKid introduces kids at an early age to the game of chess, teaching them how to play while having fun. It is an educational tool that teachers can use in their classrooms to help students develop critical thinking skills.