KidSport Edmonton Fall Sports Program

The Cause

KidSport Edmonton would like to request $10,000 in order to help 50 kids play the sport of their choice during this fall/winter sports season. KidSport helps pay for sport registration fees for Kids from low income families.
In 2015, KidSport supported 2,029 kids in the sport of their choice. We feel this program is unique and efficient in that KidSport does not provide programming – instead kids choose the program they want to participate in from the many hundreds of sport organizations working in the city. KidSport simply acts as a financial intermediary to allow the child to play.
Year to date (2016), KidSport Edmonton has experienced a 56% increase in applications. This is primarily due to the downturn in the economy, resulting in many new families requiring KidSport’s services. KidSport has performed targeted community outreach to ensure that the families who require our services, know about our services.
This funding would allow KidSport to support many families who are experiencing poverty for the first time, due to the economic downturn.

Who Will it Benefit?

This funding will benefit approximately 50 children in allowing them to participate in the sport they love and opening up opportunities for kids to play who would otherwise not be able to participate.
There are many, significant benefits of enabling children to participate in physical activity. Regular physical activity improves a child\'s mental health and contributes to their overall growth and development. It also helps to enhance academic performance by improving a child\'s ability to concentrate and solve problems. The skills and relationships developed through recreation, sports, and the arts not only better equip children and youth to avoid high-risk and dangerous situations but can help them develop the fundamental building blocks for healthy citizenship. Through participation in sport programming, children from low income families are provided with opportunities to participate and integrate into community activities.
Sport specifically has a number of important benefits including supporting preventative health, particularly in a high risk segment of the population, teaching valuable lessons to children, including team work, dedication and cooperation and providing these children with mentorship and guidance from coaches.
All of this benefits low income families and the communities they live in. Social workers who work in Edmonton tell us that programs such as the one KidSport provides helps families to break the cycle of poverty by enabling them to participate in their communities as other families do and to establish important connections. Communities benefit at a macro level as well, as healthy and happy families create healthy, happy and safe communities.

As you can see, the KidSport program “pays it forward”, starting from children to their families and on to their communities. By enabling families to break the cycle of poverty, these benefits will positively affect future generations as well.