In August of 2019 Queen City Volleyball Academy formed as a nonprofit organization with the goal of making the game of volleyball more widely accessible to young athletes by breaking through systemic barriers that have historically limited full community participation in the game. The club began with a small team of passionate coaches and local professionals who were committed to providing a high-level training experience with holistic athletic development at the core of everything.  Two years ago, QCVA started a community program targeting underserved middle school students in Charlotte, North Carolina. This year, the program expanded to three low-income areas: Eastway/Central Charlotte, West Charlotte/Airport, and Southwest Charlotte.

The initiative, led by Crystal Redfern and supported by Justin Lyons and Moana Reid, addresses barriers like transportation and cost by hosting sessions at local churches, recreation centers, and schools. With a budget of $26,000, the program aims for significant retention and participation rates, ultimately enhancing athletes’ skills, confidence, and opportunities for future success. QCVA applied for The JVA Grant Program and was accepted, which help offset the cost to implement and sustain the program.

Crystal Redfern grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. She always loved volleyball and was self-taught for a while but in middle school she finally got a chance to play on an organized team. After that middle school season, Crystal wanted to play club volleyball, but her family couldn’t afford it, so she was provided with a scholarship from an anonymous donor. This provided her with the opportunity to experience the game at a higher level, travel, and eventually earn a college scholarship.

“Because of my experience, I’ve always wanted the opportunity to give back to others and share my love for volleyball. This is why we started Queen City Volleyball Academy – to expand access to the sport. We noticed that a lot of kids wanted to play, but didn’t have transportation to get to the gym. So we decided to use the funds from the grant to “bring volleyball to the community” – this is what inspired the pop-up sessions,” said Redfern.

Crystal describes her husband, Justin, as “the spine of the organization.” He got into volleyball by watching their daughter play, and like Crystal, he shares a passion for giving back to the community and building up others. He keeps QCVA operations in order. Justin grew up playing soccer, but picked up volleyball as an adult. Each year Justin teaches a Growth Mindset course to the travel athletes, and QCVA hopes to expand this course to the community program.
Moana is also one of the community program leaders, and has played volleyball her entire life. She played college volleyball at Johnson and Wales and has coached with QCVA since its first season. She has come full circle and was recently hired as the head coach at Johnson and Wales University where she once played.
“Moana is a natural coach and has the ability to work with athletes at all levels. She is excellent at crafting practice plans to cater to athlete needs as a team and individually,” shared Redfern.

The community program ran from November 2023 to April 2024 for girls and boys in fifth through eighth grade. There were 40 participants who trained on Tuesdays and Thursdays for eight weeks at a time for an hour and a half each session. All participants received t-shirts that they wore to training. The training sessions were catered toward beginners and had a curriculum that built on skills learned the previous sessions. Parents were allowed to view the sessions as well.

In addition, QCVA hosted “pop up” sessions that were intended to provide instruction to kids who were out in the community. They set up a grass net at several public parks and invited any of the kids to play.

“This was a great experience because we ended up getting several kids interested who had never heard of volleyball or thought about playing before,” added Redfern. “We then invited them to join one of our ongoing training sessions if they wanted to continue to learn.”

QCVA plans to expand the community volleyball program to several more areas of Charlotte, beginning in August/September.
“There is still a major gap in access to volleyball, especially at a younger age, before kids can participate in school sports. We want to provide younger kids the opportunity to start developing fundamentals at an earlier age. The good news is that you don’t necessarily need gym/net to teach the basics. We plan to utilize parks and public grassy areas to continue our pop-up sessions.”
The most significant obstacle in implementing the community program was gym space. QCVA has a partnership with a local charter school here, but sometimes there would be scheduling conflicts that would result in losing access to the gym. Additionally, basketball would often take precedent, especially during basketball season, so there were fewer options for gym rentals.
Redfern and her staff plan to do more marketing for the community program to increase engagement. They realized that their target audience doesn’t always have social media or follow their club so a lot of people didn’t know about the opportunity. They intend to connect with the schools to share information about the program via newsletters, PTA, etc.
“I just want to express my gratitude for the grant from the JVA. We are a very small program and run a very lean budget, so having these funds allowed us to pay our coaches a competitive rate, rent the gym, create signage, and provide this opportunity to so many young people. It is just really awesome that this grant exists and we are so grateful to have been chosen as a recipient!”

Queen City Volleyball Academy (Charlotte, NC) is a member of the Junior Volleyball Association, a nonprofit organization that is 100% focused on improving the junior volleyball experience for over 1,500 clubs, directors, coaches and athletes. Through the JVA Grant Program, QCVA received funding to support its Training Program this past season. To learn more about the JVA Grant Program go to jvavolleyball.org/jva-grant-program/

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