Common sense, and reams of research, tell us that safe, accessible park and recreational facilities are essential for active, healthy communities. In an article for the journal Parks and Recreation, Beverly Smith, director of LISC Sports & Recreation, deconstructs the many layers of funding, partnership and community will that go into creating these critical neighborhood assets.
The excerpt below is from:
"Making Ends Meet: It Takes a Village of Funders to Re-Make a Park"
Parks and Recreation
Kelly Park, in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, had seen better days. Operated jointly by the Chicago Park District and Kelly High School and located directly across California Avenue, the 7-acre park had deteriorated so badly since opening in the early 1950s that the school’s soccer and football teams had to move their home games elsewhere. That turned into a problem when street gangs, operating east of Western Avenue, began attacking Kelly players at the larger, better-equipped McKinley Park.
“Our park had been passed up and forgotten,” said Patrick Brosnan, executive director of the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BNPC), a nonprofit community organization. “So we began to organize.”
Individually, the park district, the school, or any other local partner did not have the couple million dollars it would cost to install a synthetic turf field. But, through a series of strategic phone calls, BNPC linked up with Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Chicago and applied for a $200,000 grant through the LISC/NFL Foundation Grassroots Program.
Cooperation was key in securing the $2 million football/soccer improvement. Besides $200,000 contributed by the Chicago Bears via the NFL Foundation Grassroots Program, significant investments came from the Chicago Park District, the public schools, the state of Illinois through the efforts of Sen. Martin Sandoval (D-IL), the U.S. Soccer Federation, the city of Chicago and the Pritzker-Traubert Family Foundation.
The $200,000 NFL Foundation Grassroots grant represented a fraction of the new field’s total cost, but with that money in hand, BNPC gained considerable credibility as it approached other potential funders. Through those contributions, Kelly High School athletes will have a place to play, as do residents of the largely Mexican-American Brighton Park neighborhood. It’s a phenomenon that is occurring elsewhere in the country via the NFL Foundation Grassroots Program. Continued[+]...
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beverly Smith, Senior Program Director for Sports & Recreation
Beverly oversees the management of the NFL Foundation Grassroots Program and the ESPN Pilot Home Court Program. These programs providing financing and technical assistance to neighborhood-based organizations, parks and recreation departments and other community-based organizations across the nation, to improve the quality, safety and accessibility of local football fields and basketball courts.