Seattle Reign FC Legend: Hana Kawai – Co-Executive Director of All Girl Everything Ultimate Program (AGE UP)

The Legends Campaign, a partnership between Seattle Reign FC and Starbucks, honors women for their extraordinary contributions to our community in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Prior to Seattle Reign FC’s match against Chicago Stars FC, the club recognized Hana Kawai, Co-Executive Director of All Girl Everything Ultimate Program (AGE UP).

Today we honor Hana Kawai, Co-Executive Director of All Girl Everything Ultimate Program (AGE UP). A renowned Ultimate Frisbee player, Kawai has played and coached the sport for well over a decade, leaning into the competitiveness and community fostered by Ultimate Frisbee. She first began her coaching career at Franklin High School in 2010 and has since been a mentor to young players.

“I grew up in Seattle and didn't actually grow up playing sports. I've played a lot of Frisbee, but I didn't start until middle or high school. I feel like I just found like a home in sports that was really valuable to me, as a female athlete. It was about what you could do and feeling strong and finding space, not just what your body looked like and things like that,” shared Kawai.

Upon graduating from college, she was eager to bring that same feeling to others. She got involved with the community, largely through her coaching career, and worked collaboratively with like-minded individuals and together they identified that it was important to create a program that supported young people, particularly girls in sports in the south end.

“The organization and all of the work I’ve done has sort of grown from that. It's really been about listening to girls of color and trying to figure out how to make things work well for them and creating a space where they can be themselves and have opinions and be brilliant.”

Since the All Girl Everything Ultimate Program began, Kawai has been a key contributor to the organization’s success. At its core, the program uses sport to meet youth in their cultural context in order to connect them to opportunities and resources as well as increase access to physical activity, mentorship and authentic leadership roles that extend their reach as agents in the community.

“When I was playing Frisbee, it was a very white-dominant space and I was really thinking a lot and trying to sort of think about and grapple with racism and identity and all those pieces, and this felt like bringing those two things together.”

Kawai co-built the organization from there. Originally established in 2013 as a nonprofit, AGE UP became a fiscal sponsor organization in 2019 and now has around 10 staff and a budget of just under $1,000,000.

Each and every day, Kawai and her team at All Girl Everything Ultimate Program are working to build power among youth living at the intersection of race and class oppression.

“We've always tried to think about creating process and trying to think about supporting community that was already there, right?  Sometimes people think that nonprofits are building the community, but I think in an ideal world, our nonprofit is supporting the community building that’s already happening,” she said.

In her role with AGE UP, Kawai’s day-to-day life varies a lot based on the season and what programs are running. She does a little bit of everything, from coaching to training new staff to fundraising

“With a small organization, you have sort of the plus and the minus of getting to do anything, which also means there can be like kind of an infinite amount of work to do,” said Kawai. “Me and my co-director, we try to share this ethos with our broader staff to keep what you love centered in the work and then we'll go from there. There will always be a million things to do, so how do you stay prioritized and take care of yourself through it all?”

Kawai is the first to call out that every success that the organization has had is not solely due to her work. Rather, collaboration is at the core everything that AGE UP has achieved. Of course, she’s proud of the success that the youth she coaches have found on the field, but some of the less measurable successes stick out to her the most.

“I'm really proud of some more intangible pieces too, like staff, culture and community building we've supported over so many years. We’ve been able to watch a ton of people grow and develop and that's really cool.”

As someone whose career is centered around working with young people, Kawai offered some insightful advice to those pursuing their goals.

“Sometimes people don’t do something because they assume it’s not going to work out or they won’t try out for a team or something because they think they won’t make it. I always tell them to let someone reject you. Don't reject yourself before someone else does. If someone else says no to you, great, fine, but at least you didn't discourage yourself first. We don't have to set the limits before someone else does, you know?”

True to her nature, Kawai is very grateful to be honored as a Reign FC and Starbucks Legend, but wants to share the honor with those that have supported the work she is most passionate about.

“To be very clear, I didn't do this by myself. There's a lot of people, whether they're literally with me at the game or just in my life, that I got to do this with, so that’s the most important part to me,” she concluded.