Youth Sports is Life!

Play Equity to Advance Mental Health (sponsored by the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation)

South LA

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

Most residents served by the Long Beach Red Shield live in the zip code of 90813, an area with varied socioeconomic challenges. About 17.6% families with children live below the poverty level, and 31.9% families headed by a single female live below the poverty level (US Census 2020). Many families experience linguistic isolation where nearly half of residents (45.6%) speak a language other than English at home and 29.9% report speaking English "less than very well" limiting their ability to help their children succeed in school. Our Youth Club is meeting the greatest need for this moment by providing disadvantaged children with the support and tools they need to successfully catch up academically in a safe environment parents can trust, while also having the opportunity to engage in sports without the financial burden. The program mainly serves at-risk low-income children and youth from the greater Long Beach area. Most of the children we serve are primarily Hispanic and Black.

The youth programs offered at The Salvation Army Long Beach Red Shield provide enriching opportunities to help address the needs of at-risk youth in the community helping local children/youth stay and succeed in school. The low-income, primarily Hispanic and Black population that we serve live in very tight quarters in Long Beach, due to rental prices, where children don't have space to focus on school. Students who are already disadvantaged with language barriers, space in home, technology issues, and the non-prioritization of school within the families has led them to fall further behind during the pandemic these past academic years. In response, the Red Shield launched our Red Shield Youth Club. The program runs Monday-Friday from 2:30-7pm, through the end of the school year. From 4-5:30pm, the Youth Club provides low-income students with support to help them improve academically with 7 weeks of Summer Day Camp. A dinner is offered from 5:30-6pm to assist working families who need their kids to remain in a safe environment until they get off work, and to likewise connect the youth to additional evening sports teams, opportunities, and programming offered from 6-7pm. Our sporting activities include Rams flag football, soccer, karate, basketball, and pickleball.

Equipped with a new collegiate-size gymnasium with workout area and a turf field with walking track around it, we have greatly expanded our capacity for athletic programming for youth. We are in partnership with: Pateadores youth soccer program, Bballers Hoops youth basketball program, Wado Kai Karate, Los Angeles Rams flag football program, LA Soccer Foundation for a Just Ball open soccer program for middle schoolers and high schoolers, and a Pickleball program in partnership with a local club. All this programming that we offer is free for the youth of the community through our Free Red Shield Membership. Every week we have more and more organizations contacting us to partner with them for tournaments, sports camps or ongoing athletic programming for girls and boys. We have many basketball, volleyball, soccer, flag football, public and private schools, and other nonprofits who rent from us (at greatly reduced pricing) to have a location for their youth athletic programming.

With the inactivity of the pandemic for youth and the "health fear" that is still prevalent among low-income families, it is more important than ever to tackle the problem of getting these families back into youth sports and "active" for both their physical well-being, but maybe even more importantly their mental health. Kids are struggling greatly with mental health and motivation. The activity, endorphins, and motivation that sports bring to youth participants carries over into the classroom and into additional areas of their lives. During the pandemic we expanded our community center and built a brand-new NBA-size gymnasium and turf field with lights and a walking/running track. We already see over 500 youth using these resources every week but know that with an Athletics Coordinator to support the Program Staff and partnerships we already have; we can double that number.