Home · Vision for Team LYDIA Team LYDIA was formed in order to raise money for the students of LYDIA’s Urban Academy. Lydia Urban Academy is an alternative high school dedicated to the belief that anyone can learn if given personalized guidance and the proper academic environment. It is our mission to train students for successful transition into adulthood by providing them with the opportunity to learn how to: think critically, problem solve, build self-discipline, accept personal responsibility and demonstrate respect for authority, peers and themselves.

LUA averages about 25 enrolled students at any given time. The enrollment numbers are kept low in order to allow for a wonderfully low teacher / student ratio. This much more highly individualized attention allows the students to receive the instruction, supervision, and guidance that creates the success that many of the students who have gone through Urban Academy have been able to achieve—improved GPA, higher attendance rates, and even after-graduation achievements.

This highly personalized education costs relatively little compared to many private schools. It costs about $5,000 for a student to attend LUA; however, each student is only asked to pay $1500, and many students have their tuitions reduced beyond that on an as needed basis, due to the desire of not wanting to limit the ability to succeed for those who are not economically in a place to afford a tuition of that price. Since LYDIA is committed to helping in this way, that also means that our organization takes on quite a bit of cost in order to keep the school operational and continuing to pursue excellence in education. For these reasons, LYDIA’s Urban Academy tuition fund comes up short by about $87,000 annually (based on an average 25 student enrollment multiplied by the $3500 differential between schooling cost and actual payments).

As you can see, we need your help. We need your support, in order to help our kids continue to gain some of the advantages that are often stripped from them based on the school and living environments that would otherwise encompass their lives. By running for Team LYDIA, you are--even if only in this seemingly simple way—helping kids to succeed. Your running goals equal life goals being set by our students every day due to the efforts of LYDIA’s Urban Academy. As you join Team LYDIA and are “Running to Learn, ” you are allowing for opportunities for our LUA students to be “Learning to Run”…through life--setting goals, realizing success, and achieving their dreams.