Activating Green Space to Create More!

Green space, park access, and trees

West LA East LA South LA Central LA San Fernando Valley South Bay San Gabriel Valley

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

We are directly addressing the need for more public green space for kids to play on in Los Angeles. Los Angeles suffers from a dearth of public playing fields for field sports and free play. Not only does our city struggle to maintain existing green space across our public parks, but it doesn't have the resources to build more of it. Soccer is the number one youth team sport in Los Angeles and the city can't meet the demand Angelenos have for this sport along with all others. In addition, most of our city's public fields are permitted 24/7 by paying organizations, or they are kept off-limits during non-permit hours by fences and locks. The TM23 Community Cup, not only activates existing public green space in a magical way for children of all backgrounds and circumstances, but it raises the funding necessary to build and refurbish more of it.

The TM23 Community Cup is an annual youth soccer tournament for 250 boys and girls ages 8-12 across LA that brightens our world with more PLAY and helps fund the development of more state-of-the-art public athletic fields / green space, each one called Tommy's Field. This magical community event takes place on our first Tommy's Field at Westwood Rec Center, and is fully sponsored so all children have equal access to play. The TM23 Community Cup is not your typical youth soccer tournament. We play small-sided games, fun and fast. A DJ plays music all day long. We include all 3 of LA's professional soccer teams who show up to support. All players win an ice cream. All mother's receive a rose. We paint rocks and tattoos. And we keep the rules simple: Smile; Be Creative; Connect; and Have Fun! The purpose of this event is to activate existing public field space; foster community; remind children and families why it's so important to play in life; and raise the funds necessary to build more Tommy's Fields /public green space across LA. 100% of net proceeds from this annual Mother's Day event go toward building and refurbishing more Tommy's Fields in LA communities where they are needed the most. It is our intention to grow the TM23 Community Cup across all Tommy's Fields to not only serve more children and brighten our world with more play, but to continue raising the funds necessary to create more usable, sustainable, and much-needed public green space in Los Angeles.

With the continued success and growth of the TM23 Community Cup, we are not only activating more public green space across Los Angeles, but we are developing more of it in our public parks for children to play on. Our work has already proven to be successful. We recently hosted our 3rd annual TM23 Community Cup on Mother's Day 2025, and are now close to funding our third Tommy's Field downtown in the underserved district of Boyle Heights. As the TM23 Community Cup grows across multiple Tommy's Fields and raises more funding to build more green space, more youth in this city will have access to free play; more Tommy's Fields will modernize our public parks for field sports (like soccer) that children and adults increasingly want to play the most; and LA will be better prepared for the World Cup and Olympics, when more Angelenos than ever will want to go outside and play in our local parks with friends.