City Council - Strong Women, Families, and Communities Committee Hearing on Docket #1852

Thank you for watching!

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for watching!

Good morning. For the record, my name is Erin Murphy, at-large city councilor, and I am the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Strong Women, Families, and Community. Today is December 1st, 2025. The exact time is 10.08 AM. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov backslash city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8. RCN Channel 82 and Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc Strong Women Education at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all Councillors. Public testimony will be taken.

During this hearing, an individual will be called on in the order in which they have signed up, and everyone who is giving public testimony will have two minutes. There is a sign-in sheet if you want to give public testimony at the door. If you're interested in testifying in person, the sign-up's at the door. If you want to testify virtually, you can email our central staff liaison, Cora Montron. at cora.montrond, M-O-N-T-R-O-N-D, at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket 1852. Order for a hearing to learn how the City Council can support the Mayor's Youth Sports Initiative to increase youth sport participation across Boston.

This matter was sponsored by Councilor Ben Weber, Councilor Fitzgerald, and myself, Councilor Murphy, and was referred to my Committee of Strong Women, Families, and Communities back on October 22nd. Today, I am joined by my colleagues in order of arrival. Councilor Flynn, Councilor Weber is here. I know Councilor Fitzgerald is on his way, and I believe other colleagues will join us as well. The hearing continues. So before we go to opening statements from my colleagues, there is a short video that Council Weber's office has put together. So we're going to start with the short video, and then we'll go to opening statements.

Thank you.

My name's Lilla, I'm 11, and I play soccer.

Where'd you play soccer?

Boston.

Where specifically?

The JP League.

And what field? What do you think of the field?

It's good.

It's good? Yeah. Okay. What was your favorite part about playing soccer this year?

Doing it with friends. Hi, my name is Luca. I'm age four. I'm in Jamaica Plain. My favorite memory is... You gotta say, I play Reagan Tebow. I play Reagan Tebow. My favorite memory is when I hit the ball so hard.

Hi, my name is Asher. I'm age seven. I'm from Jamaica Plain. I play Reagan T-ball, and my favorite memory is On the third game of my second year, I hit the ball really, really hard and that was a good time.

So thank you to the kids who have started us off. I know they're in school right now, so they couldn't join us. I know we're all here to uplift their voices today. I will start with Council Weber for opening statements and then to Council Flath.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the panelists. who are here, and for folks in the community who are here for a second panel. You know, I think that, you know, so the mayor's youth sports initiative, you know, is something I think we can all agree we want to support and it pointed out and highlighted an issue we have here in the city which is sports participation numbers which are much lower than you know in the surrounding suburban communities and you know what can we do to Increase participation and help our kids. We talk a lot in this space about how to help our kids through school programs and We also hear that a lot of performance in school isn't based just on what happens in the classroom.

It's about what happens outside the classroom. Well, if you look at The amount of time kids spend in youth sports programs outside of the classroom, it's enormous. and that this, for so many kids across our city and the number of hours that are put in, We have programs that are run on an entirely volunteer basis. We have some of those folks here today. All the people running our neighborhood little leagues, our soccer, our hockey, flag football. We had tee ball. The fact that these are parents of kids who are showing up and creating these kinds of programs, it's sort of like an institution in itself that

You know, I think my colleagues on the council and I want to figure out what we can do to help those institutions which provide thousands of hours of programming, you know, great programming for our kids. and figuring out a way we can help those organizations provide the services that they're trying to do. So we've looked at the report from 2024, I'm interested to hear you know what the city is doing in terms of mapping you know facilities and promoting activities and I know you've done a lot of good work but I think something we'll hear about from the from those kids and their parents and from the organizers is that the one problem, those volunteers can provide their energy, They can do fundraising and get shirts and cleats and baseball bats and helmets and things like that. The one thing they can't do is build More facilities.

They can't build more baseball fields. They can't build more soccer fields and that's something they need the city to work on with them and then I think they They are constantly butting their heads up against, you know, they can't use that field because English High School is using the field. They can't use that other field because there are no lights and it gets dark after 5 o'clock now in the fall. and in the spring. They can't use those other fields because there's no bathrooms there. So in terms of what the city can do to help You know, those volunteer organizations fulfill their missions and provide activities for kids. I'm just grateful we could be here today and have this conversation, and I know we'll have it going forward. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. We have been joined by Councilor Fitzgerald. Thank you, Council Fitzgerald. We will go to Councilor Flynn for opening statements.

Thank you Madam Chair and thank you to the sponsors, to the Chair, to Councillor Webber, to Councillor Fitzgerald for sponsoring this important hearing. It's about working together ensuring that Young people across our city have the ability to play sports, compete, and learn from each other, but sports really brings us together as a society, as a city. brings out the best in people. It brings out the best in young people, especially. It's where you learn sportsmanship, competition, hard work, discipline. And those are the values I learned as a young kid growing up in South Boston where I played youth sports in South Boston Little League or Babe Ruth or the hockey program. My son is also Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Youth Sports and Chinatown also. But I'm really thankful and grateful for all the wonderful coaches that I see across the city and in my district. Just to name a few, Mocha Mahoney, Joe Turner, Kenny Pruskinas, Father Toomey, Brendan Flynn, Timmy Murphy, Bobby Ferrara, Billy Baker at the soccer program, Tommy McGrath, Kathy Lafferty, so many others, but giving their time to Help young people learn about important values that shape your life throughout your young years, but also growing up. Sports brings us together. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council. Council Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate it. Thank you, administration, for being here. When I think about what Youth sports in this city means I think about two things, honestly, and they're not really related, but obviously it all deals with youth sports. The first is making sure kids can play in that I know what my three kids right now, right? Eight, six, and four. We have sign-ups for all the different sports that go on. And it could be sort of a crazy whodunit board when you're trying to sign up for each season and trying to make the schedule, right? And you don't know when the practice times are going to be when you sign up. You don't know what field you're going to be at necessarily when you sign up. And so you may shell out all this money to sign up for two, three different sports or leagues. and then you find out well wait two of them are at the same time one of them is during when I have a meeting and the other time right and you go well we can't make half of this and so I think one thing I'd love to try and see

which would be very high but in a more neighborhood coordinated system trying to Understand what sports, if you get all the youth sports from each neighborhood to kind of come together and create a schedule where even if it does overlap, it's in one spot where you can see, hey, this year I'm signing up. and I want to do basketball, hockey and flag football. And whether it's AI generated or something, it can produce, here's what the schedule would look like and at what fields and at what times. The hard part, I think, is the practice times and getting that ahead of time. But I guess that's what I'm asking. If we could try and get that stuff scheduled ahead of time to know when you will have the fields and what time practice and games would be ahead of the schedule so you could work that in. I know that would be a boon to parents and probably make them much more likely to sign up for more than one sport.

I say that to say the second thing I think of in youth sports is we're getting very AAU is now creeped into you know our Two and three-year-olds, for the love of God. So everyone is sort of doing one sport from the time they're born, and they're not really expanding their horizons or trying anything else. I just worry it's ruined college hoops. It's ruined a lot of different sports and a lot of different levels, right, already. And so I just feel like, well, if we continue to let that creep into our youth, yeah, they might. there might be some really really great players that come out and can go to college and professional in certain sports at those levels but at other times most of the kids are going to Pour a lot of time, money, and commitment. And those AAU sports are expensive and exclude a lot of kids. So if that's the trend, I just want to make sure we stay ahead of that and offer folks. Those are sort of my two main issues in coming up.

But guys, thank you for being here. I'd love to hear some of it. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for being here again. The video reminded me, right? These kids were young saying it, but those are core memories they're going to carry into adulthood. They'll be 30, 40. Remembering what he said, what was it, the second inning of the third pitch that he was having. So sports definitely have such a positive impact on our kids. As you know, as elected officials, we're invited to a lot of things as an at-large city councilor around all the different neighborhoods. So I see Some of my best mornings have been spent with dropping the puck at DYH hockey, kicking off the season, or throwing the pitch over in East Boston for their Little League Baseball. Or just last month I was with Councilor Worrell and we were, you know, the ribbon cutting of the new Walsh Park and now we finally have You know, a regulated softball field where our kids don't have to travel to another town to play their home games.

They can play them there because it's now up to par. It's important that we support our youth sports, but also I think we have to know we're here to, you know, because we've been listening, right? As a parent myself, my daughter has I know how important it is that our kids have opportunities, that it's equitable across all neighborhoods, and people feel that there is a way Thank you for joining us. make sure they show up for our kids. So we have to applaud that but also make sure we're using our role here on the council to help make that easier. So looking forward to this conversation and the questions that we can ask to help make sure we're working together.

So you can start, whoever wants to go first with your opening presentation.

Absolutely. I appreciate that. I definitely will open. So good morning, and thank you all for the opportunity to be here to talk about this very important topic. For the record, my name is Jose Maso, and I am the Chief of Human Services. I'm joined by my colleague, Tyreek Wilson, who's the city's Youth Sports Initiatives Manager. And what I can say is both Tyreek and I are youth coaches. Coach, Youth Basketball. And I would say, I will on record to say that my record as a coach in youth basketball is much better than when I was as a player. And so also navigated the youth sports arena growing up here in the city of Boston. and also former swim coach. And so I started the Blackstone Sharks 25 years ago. So I initiated that swim team when I was much younger and had a lot more energy But nonetheless, a lot of passion and effort that goes into it. And Tyreek also is a basketball coach as well. I'm going to begin by just walking through a short slide presentation to give you an overview of Let's Play Boston, which is the citywide eSports Thank you.

Thank you. The reason why we're here today is to share the city's approach to youth sports with you and to give you some insights and ideas about how you can be supportive in the work that we're doing. Let's Play Boston is the city's umbrella initiative that encompasses all youth sports. We're hoping that what we shared today resonates with you and that you leave today with some fresh energy for how you can plug into Let's Play Boston. Our vision is of a city where every young person, no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, ability, or zip code, has opportunity, motivation, and access to play sports. We want to see youth sports used as a catalyst to build community and foster economic development. Next slide please. Let's Play Boston is made up of a big team of people, both on the city side as well as on the community side. We have at least four city departments that are working shoulder to shoulder to increase the availability of youth sports in the city.

We also have hundreds of partners in the community. including those who run community-based sports leagues, those who run sports-based youth development programs, and those who provide center-based programs like the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Clubs, et cetera. We also rely on countless coaches and referees to keep all of our leagues running. Of course, the most important partners of all are youth and their families. Next slide, please. I know many of you are deeply involved in youth sports as you all referenced in your opening statements throughout your community, so I probably don't need to go on about the benefits of youth sports, but this slide lays out the argument for why this is important. Youth sports have a range of positive impacts on not only the youth who participate, but also on the community at large. Youth sports contribute to physical and mental well-being. Youth who participate in sports are more likely to perform well in school, to attend college, and to continue to be physically active well into adulthood.

Nationwide, the youth sports industry contributes $39 billion in economic activity each year and Youth sports help us build community and break down barriers between people and neighborhoods. With this context, it's obvious why we would want to encourage young people to get involved and stay involved in youth sports. Next slide please. So you might ask, how is Boston doing when it comes to youth sports participation? And the answer to that picture is mixed. The most recent data we have for this is from our 2023 survey of Boston public school students. In 2023, 43% of high school students and 53% of middle schoolers said that they participated in at least one sport. This is a good start and better than most cities in the country. However, we see big gaps when we start to look at different identity groups, and this deserves some focus. 69% of white students play sports, yet only 55% of black students and 41% of Latino students play sports.

Asian students have the lowest participation rate at 37%. Almost half of boys play sports, but participation among girls is only 39%. When we start to put those gender and race ethnicity together, It becomes clear that girls of color are especially underserved in our current sport ecosystem. We also know that from nationwide data that youth who come from families living in poverty are the least likely to participate in sports, So addressing these economic barriers, participation is especially necessary. Next slide, please. So our goal. Every initiative needs a goal, and we looked at many potential measures of success. And what we decided to line our work around is the Federal Healthy People 2030 goal that seeks to achieve 63% participation in youth sports across all demographics. For white students, Boston has already exceeded this goal. And it's great that these students are reaping the benefits of sports participation. What we want to see is all students have the same opportunity access that white students have.

We want girls to see themselves as athletes. We want queer-identifying youth to feel welcome on teams. We want youth of different skill levels and abilities to be celebrated for their contributions to a team. This goal pushes us to increase sports participation by 2% per year and to make special enrolls into girls sports and sports of youth of color. We hope you embrace this goal with us because we believe it's doable and our kids are worth it. Next slide, please. Now, this might naturally lead you to ask, how are we going to do this and what is the game plan? These are all great questions. We have decided to prioritize three broad areas for investment. First, we will lower barriers to participation by making sports more affordable and accessible. If we are successful, we will bring more kids and families to the table. Second, we will invest in the human capital and physical infrastructure that makes sports possible.

This means investing in refs, umpires and coaches, and investing in facilities to ensure that our youth have the world-class facilities that they deserve. Finally, We are using sports as a leverage to build community and economic prosperity. Sports can bridge gaps and create lifelong connections between people. Boston is already a great sports city and city of champions, and we aim to get more kids to connect to our city's sports ecosystem and feel the pride that comes along with the athletic achievement. Next slide, please. So for the first goal, the first broad strategy we are going to talk about is lowering barriers to participation. One thing that we've already done to lower barriers is created the Let's Play Boston Sports Directory. It's a one-stop shop for families to find youth sports programs in their neighborhoods. We also know that many young people want to play sports, but there are barriers that they face in getting signed up. These barriers are many. Maybe they can't afford the registration fees. Maybe they have family obligations like caring for siblings or have schoolwork.

or maybe the sport that they want to play doesn't offer programming in their neighborhood, as Councilor Fitzgerald mentioned. To address the financial barriers, we've invested in community-based youth sports through the Let's Play Boston Sports Grant, which offers up to $5,000 to community-based sports providers to help them lower their fees to families. To date, over two funding cycles, we funded over 75 grantees and provided almost half a million dollars in grant funds to community-based sports organizations that offer programming in every neighborhood of the city. We are also leaning in on our partners at BCYF and Parks to offer more free sports programming. Last year, BCYF launched a three-season rec league for boys and girls ages 8 to 14 in basketball, futsal, and volleyball. Each league engages about 300 youth. We see this as an important opportunity for youth to hone their skills as they prepare for school sports. Next slide, please. This strategy is about building on the vital infrastructure that enables us to offer good quality youth sports. Every team needs at least two things.

One, a place to work out, practice, or play. And two, a coach. That's what this strategy is about. We are working with our partners at the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement to offer trainings and youth development, knowing that youth are more likely to see a coach in the course of their day than they are a counselor or therapist. Coaches today need to be prepared to meet youth where they are and we are supporting this critical skill building. On the facilities piece, we've been repairing city sports facilities. We've invested over $50 million to renovate our aging pool infrastructure, enabling us to make improvements to 12 of our 22 pools. We are addressing the backlog of gym renovations at the city schools and Community Centers and building two new centers, one in Grove Hall and one in the North End. And we are revitalizing Wright Stadium in Franklin Park so that it could be a year-round home for BPS athletics and community sports. Once complete, the stadium will host hundreds of hours of BPS programming, from soccer and track to football and basketball, giving students a place to train, compete, and lead.

Next slide, please. The final strategy is about leveraging youth sports to build community and our economy. Last year, we launched the Let's Play Boston Instagram account to lift up the great achievements of the youth sports teams in Boston. We are gathering followers by the end of the day and welcome any content you'd like to share with others in the youth sports community. In June, we held the first Celebration of Champions event, which brought together the winners of the Mayor's Cups and City Championships to receive rings and accolades from the mayor. Over 300 youth and their coaches attended. Next slide. So the question and the main reason why we're here today is how can you help City Council? So finally, before I wrap up, I want to take a moment to respond to the question that was included in the hearing order. This is a great question, and I have a few suggestions for you. First, we love your support in recognizing our student athletes. Lift up student athletes publicly, attend games, post on social media, you all have large social media followings, and highlight the wins.

Fund recognitions of student athletes by supporting their state and national championship runs, traveling gear, Support equipment and gear needs for neighborhood-based sports organizations. If you could share information from the city via our newsletters and social media, that would be wonderful. We welcome you sharing great opportunities with your followers as well as sports sign-up opportunities. Follow and engage with us on the Let's Play Boston Instagram account for the latest information as well. And finally, we always welcome partnerships. If you see an opportunity for the city to collaborate with others in the youth sports ecosystem, please let us know and help us make the connection. We know that we're all more effective when working together. Next slide. And with that, I will close. And thank you for your attention. We are happy to take on any questions that you may have at this time. Thank you all.

Thank you, Chief. Tyreek, do you want to add anything or go right to questions?

No, we can go right to questions.

Okay. Well, thank you. We'll start with you, Councilor. Sure. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks for the presentation. In terms of state championships, I think BPS cross-country, boys and girls won state titles. and Boston International won boys soccer state title. And so I think we're trying to bring them in here Director wants to get on that. But the idea, I think, would be to bring them in, recognize them, both great, all three teams, great stories, and looking for more of the same in the winter. So yeah, just watching the presentation, I was thinking about, there's a bunch of the panelists who are here. We had a discussion with... and Tony Seraphim. I don't know if you know he runs Parkway Soccer in West Roxbury.

He's run it for decades and he was saying one time he was talking to Mayor Menino and he was saying how he needed to make sure that These youth sports leagues get the support they need because that's the most important after-school program the city has. I feel like that's the mission that we all want to satisfy here is to have those places be able, those organizations be able to provide those services to the kids. So in terms of The infrastructure. I know the Youth Sports Initiative talks about mapping the infrastructure. There is a map of the facilities on the website. I guess what have you learned from that?

What have you picked up from that? And then I guess the follow up is what kinds of interactions do you guys have with other departments? You can't, you know, Bill White Stadium. Other people are doing that. Other people run the high school gyms and the soccer fields. So what kind of interactions do you have with parks, BPS, to try to Make sure we have those facilities up to the needs.

Yeah, I mean, I'll speak to it. So we work in close partnership with our city partners. And so it's BPS, BCYF, and the Parks Department. Through Let's Play Boston, we have a quarterly huddle in which we bring all departments together and we talk about what are our initiatives, what are our goals, updates, et cetera, any pain points, any areas of collaboration, partnership, et cetera. So I think that's a key moment in which we all come together. We have a monthly stand-in meeting with BCYF, BPS to talk about facilities directly, which really addresses the point that you're making in terms of what improvements we need to make. Last year, we initiated working groups in these respective areas, so the three areas that I mentioned. In terms of the effectiveness, we figured that the quarterly huddles, I think, were most important in terms of bringing folks together. and being able to have meetings throughout the period of time until the huddles actually take place.

What we did is in 2023, many of the partners who are in the audience at the moment, we did listening sessions. So that's where the report came in 2024. That's where we were able to learn were the areas of focus and that's how we came up with our three goals. And so the overall goal within how does that we plan on achieving the goals and that's how facilities became the piece. The facilities mapping was, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. what's state owned, what's privately owned as well, right? And throughout the city of Boston. And so like, we really wanted to have answers to when folks ask like, what can we access? Great question, right? And so the facilities map, if you go on, it's on the website, you'll be able to figure out like what's available Drill Down to a Neighborhood, JP for example, what's available within that community, what's free and accessible, what requires a permit, what requires A fee, etc. So that's the reason that we were able to determine that. What we learned from that is that we have a finite amount of resources.

And so we can't develop more land. We only have what it is that we have. It's really for us taking a look at first what it is that we currently have. Where can we make improvements? How can we make improvements? How can we be fiscally responsible as a city as well and being able to allocate our dollars and making sure that the neighborhoods that we're looking about from the equity lens are able to receive this investment and then being able to go on from there. And so it was twofold in terms of what's currently out there in the network and what do we currently need as well and how do we go about prioritizing or advocating actually for where the investment dollars need to go. And that's still in close partnership with our community partners. We know it's a huge gap. The sports ecosystem is huge. and the City of Boston. And it encompasses so many different things from volunteer-led organizations to paid organizations. So that's what we encountered.

Well, so in terms of just one issue that I think trying to accomplish things that we can get done, that it seems like we should be able to get done. So just picking maybe the lowest rung on the ladder would be bathrooms. And I know that is an issue for both Parkway Soccer and JPU Soccer in my district. Millennium Park. There's a plan for a bathroom. It's been a plan for a long time without the bathroom being built. And JPU Soccer using English High School as their main hub have occasionally had to pay for the bathrooms or porta-potties. Sometimes there's one porta-potty that gets used by JPU soccer, English High, football, soccer, baseball. and, you know, like, do you, can those, like, would that be something that you could work on, that U Sports could come to you to say, hey, we need to,

I just want to highlight. That is just one easy-to-remember issue. But in terms of those sort of like small asks, You know, how can you help them with that?

Yeah, I mean, happy to chime in. Parkway Soccer, just to let you know, is a two-time grant recipient of the Let's Play Boston grants. And so they So if there's anything financially, whatever they received, that funding to be able to support if they had to pay for the bathrooms or access or anything else like that. I don't know in direct detail at the moment, whatever, if that's how they utilize their money. J.P. Sarkar actually has not applied to my knowledge.

And that's money they can use for bathrooms?

Yeah, it's accessibility, yeah. So as far as like it's equipment use, It's like rental spaces, and so those are things. I mean, Councilor, to be honest with you, just in terms of like, you're naming it because it's a potential barrier, correct?

And so like- Yeah, it's just an easy, this is like the canary in the coal mine. Like we can't provide bathrooms for the kids, like what else?

So the goal and the incentive there is how do we actually remove the barriers as best as possible? And so this will help that organization. That's one less thing that they have to worry about in terms of them being able to secure funding for that. Granted, the ideal situation is to have a permanent bathroom or something of that sort, but a temporary fix in which we are able to support that. The application process, unfortunately, is annually, and so they would have to apply hopefully at the start of the next fiscal year for the Let's Play Boston grant opportunity. Emergency funds that are received on a rolling basis that we review monthly in the event that they are in a pinch. So that application is available as well.

Okay. And I'm sorry, Chair. I have a lot of questions. Feel free to. So in terms of field maintenance, are you involved in those discussions also? Because that's something that we hear about. and that's either the grass fields. We heard how the city used to fence off fields at Millennium Park in the summer to allow the grass to grow. That doesn't happen anymore. In JP, you know, Astroturf fields that haven't been in maintenance in a while and need some care. Is that something that you can help with also?

Yeah, I mean, bring it to our attention. So again, we're in close partnership with the Parks Department, right? And so, and I know they probably hear it directly as well, but I think it helps just amplifies like what is that we're hearing on the community as well and just seeing like, all right, these are discussions that we're having, how it is that we're prioritizing, You know where the investment dollars are going, where like the You know, whether or not they are actually even, I guess, on their radar. So I think the more folks that know about it, and for us, what it is, is working in close partnership with the Parks Department has been great in our relationship, along with BPS and BCYF. They're always open to feedback in terms of either programming, accessibility, or whatever the needs are. And so as you elevated to us, it's Arik's role specifically to help filter a lot of that information as well. and bring it up as close as possible. So yeah, absolutely. I mean, for folks that have access to us, again, I understand how the city of Boston works where folks have relationships and they try to reach out to each department directly, but we're here to amplify it as well.

Okay, well, I'm not gonna ask a question. I just have two quick points. A couple other things I hope we could talk about is what the plan is. It seems like seventh, eighth grade is like this barrier, like kids participate and then there's nothing in middle school, if that's what it's still called. you know in terms of BPS and you know kids have to wait for freshman teams the other seventh grade trying out they get discouraged and you know what we're doing to Thank you. I think did a great job with this citywide soccer league, which we had as a pilot this year for Bays, which I think it was

4th graders for boys and 3rd graders for girls or something like that. I think one of the issues that came up was when you have bays through the whole region, you've got 100 teams in each age group and they sort them into skill level. and there's no matter what skill level you are at there are other teams in your skill level but for the city-wide league just because there's not a lot of teams the skill levels really varies and so that was an obstacle I think for and some of the teams where we used to be able to find Thank you for joining us. Think about that in the future. That's all I wanted to say, Chair. I thank you for letting me go on.

Of course. Thank you. Councilor Flynn.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree with the comments Council Weber made on the coordination is critical and how we work together. So I want to acknowledge Council Weber, his important comments and questions. A couple issues I wanted to focus on is what's important to me. I highlighted in my community in South Boston, but I also want to acknowledge that in the South End, We have the South End youth baseball program, Pete Schultz. They do an exceptional job. And Chief, I see you over at the games at Peters Park as well. You don't see a more diverse group of young kids at that baseball park or in that league. And it's not just South End kids. You see a lot of Roxbury kids.

So I want to acknowledge the residents of the South End and Roxbury An area that's important to me is Villa Victoria. I see a lot of young kids from that area playing baseball. Not as many from Ruth Barkley. which is the old cathedral, but it was highlighted, I think you mentioned it, Chief, but also even though the south end has a large Asian community, Chinese community, Chinese-American community, almost as large as Chinatown actually, if you factor in the Bay Village. We don't see many Chinese kids playing youth sports as much as other groups. And I know it was mentioned, I don't know if it was 40% maybe.

And it's not blaming anybody, but it's just how can we support them to get more involved and to provide more opportunities for them, but also kids in public housing. deserve an opportunity as we all agree. Students with disabilities are also important to all of us. They deserve to be on the field and playing sports and Making sure that sports are accessible to everybody. My dad coaches my nephew's baseball team. It's called the Challenge Team. and baseball team for children of special needs. So children with special needs deserve an opportunity to play youth sports as well, certainly.

Those are some of the issues I highlighted, but I also am a strong supporter of girls sports and young women's sports. They deserve that same opportunity to compete with each other in I know it helps them going into high school and hopefully into college where they're learning about sportsmanship and hard work and discipline and it helps them in their grades. as well in high school. But having factored all that in, Chief, and I know there's a lot there, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to respond and to acknowledge that I think your heart is in the right place, Chief, and just wanted to See what your thoughts might be.

Councilor, that means a lot hearing that from you, so I appreciate that. Thank you. And to hear that we're in alignment. I think everything that you uplifted is exactly what is that we're prioritizing. So all the groups and organizations that you mentioned is what is that we're trying to Thank you. Thank you. Our overall collective focus on what is that we're trying to achieve. And so I think, you know, respected to, you know, the South End, the Asian American community, you know, that you mentioned, we have supported several organizations, you know, through the Let's Play Boston grant opportunities. Ohana New England is a Dragon Boat organization, operates out of Seaport. We funded multiple times and do phenomenal work. and that space as well.

And they have a good catchment of word of mouth participants, but they do a really magnificent job and really work closely with the volunteers. It's all volunteer led, which is amazing. So the work that they do there. But again, we continue to really figure out ways, how are we able to amplify it. The youth sports conversation in the city of Boston is not new. Our colleagues from 20 years ago are you know we're discussing the same things and attempting to actually bring it together for the city to take the overall approach of like and for our administration our mayor to say hey this is something that we're prioritizing like let's put it all together collectively is impactful and amazing, right? And so to be able to have a position like, you know, had Tariq in his role, to be able to work closely with our departments and our other, you know, colleagues to say like, hey, how do we collectively be able to like focus on this one goal? How do we achieve this one goal? How do we break down the silos? Because many silos do exist, not only in our inner city departments, but throughout our communities as well. It's amazing.

I think, Council Weber, you're just talking about soccer. The many different issues within soccer by itself. We're talking about all sports, right? And so I'm just naming that because What is actually amplifying is just around that one sport. Now, we're talking about citywide, all the many different sports, and then we get into discussions about what other sports are we not capturing, what other demographics are we not capturing, how is it that we're able to amplify it. It's massive, right? This ecosystem is large, and I'll continue to emphasize that. And so we have to be focused on that. So just to your point about the middle school aspect, that's the reason why we started the BCYF Rec League, to be able to work in that demographic, the 8- to 14-year-old population, because we recognize there may have been a gap. And how do we better prepare our young people to be able to try out freshman year so when they go to BPS, they actually play team sports, they already know what it is to have a referee, to have a coach, et cetera, and to have that experience is what it is that we're focusing on.

And so the Citywide Sports League's huge shout out, and I'll be remiss if we don't mention Anchi Moreno and the work that she's been able to do and has done and continues to do. And so I know she was a Boston Scores participant in the past and all the work that she and the passion that she brings to the work has been magnificent. And again, to your point, it's the first year. And so through this all, there's going to be many different gaps. This has been attempted several times before, but I think We have the North Star. We have the energy. We have the personnel. We have you all support to be able to move the city in the right direction of really figuring this out. And it's a huge ecosystem. I'll just continue to say that. You'll probably hear me say that every single answer.

Thank you, Chief. And maybe one final point, Madam Chair, if I may, and I will be brief. And maybe it helps the conversation, but where I'm coming from also is My son played baseball for Boston Latin, was on the Boston Latin team, and graduated from Boston Latin a couple years ago. And he did well there, but he also had He also had the financial means to play sports throughout his life. Or he had the means to get to a practice or a game because me and my wife were able to at times drop everything to get him somewhere or to get him cleats that may have cost, I don't know, $200. But I guess my point is a lot of families aren't as fortunate

and they also deserve the same opportunities as my son. But providing that opportunity to someone That doesn't have the financial means is critical because sports can hopefully, and I think John Fitzgerald was talking about it, it might be an opportunity for them to get into college if they're able to be recruited maybe. or might be able to get them some type of financial aid if they want to play Division II, Division III, maybe Division I. But we want to ensure that every kid in the city has the same opportunities regardless of economic background. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Councillor Flynn.

I just want to mention we've been joined by Councillor O'Reilly, but next we'll go to Councillor Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Chair. So a lot of different things. One, I guess I'll go back to my opening statement. around scheduling and things of that nature, because again, I think it would help more parents get involved if they didn't feel it was such a potential burden to even sign up, right? And so what do we think are the barriers to understanding more specificity in a schedule prior to a season beginning like during sign-up stages or things like that like is it I know sometimes all the applications might not be in. There's still the shuffling of the fields and who has them at what time. But I don't know. What is exactly the issue when it comes to that?

No, I would say the biggest struggle we have is just a lot of different programs going on at the same time or like during different seasons. So one thing that we've done to kind of get a better idea of that is, you know, we have the youth sports directory, which currently right now has around 212 programs and of course as we all know that's not even all the programs that Boston has to offer and we're looking to get more in there. So even though I'm saying, the reason I'm saying that is we use that to see, okay, what programming and what's going on at certain times, because to your point, one thing that we seen to help us map that out is working on creating like a guide Using that directory to create a guide to say like, okay, you show up during the spring season from a different state and you're trying to find something for your kid. But there's a lot of opportunities going on. When can you make all that work and how can you factor in that time?

So utilizing the directory, as I mentioned, to kind of give folks a better idea of what's going on in the given neighborhood, as you mentioned, because not only is a lot of different sports, there's a lot of given sports. In these individual neighborhoods, there's so many options for people. So find a better way to consolidate that in a way so it's like easier and not as overwhelming. So that's one way that we're looking to just make that a clearer picture for folks.

Gotcha. I'd still, I would throw out a recommendation of grouping it by neighborhoods. Because I think a lot of people, yeah, if you're coming in from out of state and all of a sudden you want, but there are people here that know the programs that exist, right? I know there's DYH hockey. I know there's CYO basketball. I know there's Dorchester Little League. I know there are all these things and my kids are playing in them but every year it doesn't matter. You could be in the system throughout your whole youth career. and still each year have different issues of to say, well, how am I going to make sure that my kid will actually be at these games or we have transportation to these games? and when it would just be I think the consistency would be nice I guess is what I'm getting right to know hey every Tuesday at 6 30 they've got baseball and every Wednesday they've got swimming right and like bang lock it in the calendar for the next three months and we can work around that. Anything we can do to help that, please let us know.

Yeah, I mean, Councilor, I mean, just to respond, not even to be coy about this. No, please. But like, all right, so. My kids' sport was dance. I'm a dance dad, you know, and now my oldest is a dancer, youngest, musical theater. And so even trying to figure out those schedules was a nightmare, right? Every single year, same experience, right? And so I think... I hear your recommendation, I take your recommendation, and I would love a level deeper, just in terms of are you recommending the city? I think the city can control what we can control, in terms of city programming. I think it's really hard when we add the additional layer of community sports, Page Sports, AAU, et cetera. That's when it becomes unwieldy. And so I think we have to measure in terms of what do we actually have control over? What can we actually focus our energy and resources around? I think your point about the neighborhood sports heard. And if we can even really figure out

Potentially, and I think it's something that we identified in discussions as well, as one season is coming to an end, like a league's coming to an end, that parents are aware of what other opportunities are for the next season, right? So if it's basketball, then baseball's coming up next, right? And so we know and they like okay what leads are available and they're actually doing some sign up as basketball is coming to a closure right for the next league or the next season if it's soccer whenever it is like so just being able to like line those things up and saying hey for this seasons These are sports offerings that are available in your neighborhood, right? Just to really think from that line of scope, because at least that would help folks know what's available. But then it's that additional layer, as you mentioned, in terms of like practices and, you know, Game Days and everything else and those things overlap. We were 100% heard and I think the question I'll have for you is as you continue to have conversations throughout the community, whatever you're hearing back as far as feedback that you're like, you know what, that's a great idea, pick up the phone and call me. If you received that million dollar idea, please share it with us.

Because I think we'll all collectively really try to figure that piece out, but Again, like I mentioned, it's complicated.

Yeah. And wait till you add in different age kids, right? Different days, multiple kids all doing the same thing. That schedule gets to be... We'll continue to pray. That's it. My wife literally takes a day off from work to sign each once just to sign up for things. to make sure that it fits in the calendar.

You know what I mean?

Because you literally need that time to be like, well, we can't do this or we can't do that.

And then speaking to Councilor Flynn's point, that's the luxury of the folks that have I appreciate that.

A lot more questions. Maintenance of the fields, funding for that. I believe Council Weber kind of sort of brought that up. Obviously, you know, we can't, we're not making the more fields at the moment, so we have to do That's where I think the city can play the role. Even with paid sports and things that are not under the city control, everyone typically needs to use a city facility to do these sports. And so that's where I think we have a little bit of leverage and maybe bringing all of the groups together and just saying, look, we're not trying to tell you what to do. We're just trying to get you together to say, here is when we can do that. Right? And then maybe that allows it. And then that's the role the city plays in that. Because there's enough sports out there that are being done where the city doesn't necessarily have to provide the sport per se, but just the framework of even the fields and the scheduling. I think could be a bigger role that we play. I'm interested to hear about the bathrooms. I think a capital investment in bathrooms everywhere is probably too expensive.

But maybe a well-maintained port-a-party program or something like that we could get going. Nothing more is swimming, right? Life skill, so important. We've prioritized it in our family to make sure before any other sports, they just learn to swim. How are we ensuring swimming proficiency at youth sports and signing? And do we have any numbers on the sign-ups of all that stuff and who's doing it?

Yep. So that's being run out of my department as well, my office of human services. So Swim Safe Boston. So we launched it three years ago. Provides free swim opportunities, free swim lessons for young people. and it's been magnificent. I think to date over 12,000 lessons have been provided throughout the city, which has been awesome. And so it's in close partnership. We provide grant funding to our local aquatics providers, so the YMCAs, the West End House, the Boys and Girls Club, et cetera. The majority of those lessons actually provided for free from BCYF, but in close partnership with the other providers as well to make sure that those lessons happen. Again, as I stated in my opening statement, former swim coach, and so I was happy to champion the mayor's initiative in terms of making sure that every young person had access to being able to learn how to swim as a life skill, as being a coastal city. I think it's critically important, right?

And so, and the barriers to entry despite the cost for lessons is fairly low. Like all you have to have is access to a pool and then, you know, swim trunks, that's it basically, right? Bathing suit, et cetera, right? And so like, we think about it from those lens, maybe goggles if you wanna take it a step further, whatever, but those are lower compared to like buying cleats and all this additional equipment, right? Thinking about it from that lens, I think we've been able to prioritize that. and BPS, thankfully with the renovations of the many BPS pools, has been able to adopt the swim lessons throughout the school day as part of like the school curriculum. And so working in close partnership with our folks with BPS, it doesn't happen every single school that does have a pool located in these facilities. But that has been incorporated as well, which has been phenomenal. So that's game changing, right? Because if you think about barriers to entry, if a parent now is sending a kid to school and they're learning,

Not only the academic learnings, but also learning how to swim. That's one less thing that they have to do on the weekend or after school or anything else like that, whatever. integrating that throughout the school day is critically important. And so that's the path that we're leading towards. That's all through Swoop State Boston.

Thank you. For DCF kids, they're in a unique situation, sometimes not always in the same place, same time. Do we run any sort of program that That gets their involvement even because, you know, there's circumstances that may allow them, not allow them, or move them out of a and many more. Do we have anything that focuses on them specifically? Or are we just looking at casting the wide net and saying all kids, and that includes you all, right? But I feel there might need to be a little extra pull.

No, you're absolutely right. Yes, I mean, the wide net for sure. So it's all young people in the city of Boston. I think specifically, that's a great question. I don't have a direct answer to. I can definitely connect with our folks at BPS. Superintendent Skipper always talks about How are we best serving that population as well? I know through the Office of Returning Citizens, through the participatory budget process, received some funding, about $250,000 to support that population. How are they doing it? Thank you for your time.

and educational effort to turn off electronic devices. If we want the kids to play the sports, right, they gotta get off the couch first. And so, if we can do our best to, that's from all angles, that's from BPL, we'll say that anywhere. to make sure the kids are just not on the iPads and the phones and out there running around getting bruises and bumps.

Again, I mean, just to echo, like, if you could figure these things out, I will welcome any, you know, feedback that you have. I think you would be the person that all people will go to if you're like, I got it, you know. But what I would say, though, and Tyreek definitely can speak to this, if we think about ability, I think esports has been an entry point for a lot of folks, young people in particular, who may have social-emotional challenges and or physical disabilities as well. to be engaged in some type of team sport through electronics. And so we've seen that as a potential avenue too and where we could be able to tap in, lower the barrier to entry for folks to be able to participate. Ideally, we would love for folks to be physically active, et cetera, but we know in terms of that connection and social cohesion, that's an area that we've also provided some type of programming for as well.

Awesome. Thank you guys very much for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Worrell?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the sponsors. Thank you to the panel for being here and all your work around youth sports. Before I give shout-outs, swimming. I know you just talked about swimming. It was 12,000 lessons. I know sometimes you might not be a natural. have to take multiple lessons in order to learn to swim. Do you know how many of those students came back one, two, three, four, five times? You said 12,000 lessons.

How did that break down? Let me clarify. The lessons constitute... like a series okay so like so example if you signed up your son for lessons it will be for like You get eight lessons basically. So that's what it is. And so it's not a one-time lesson. It's not a one-time lesson. Yeah, it's not a one-time lesson. Got it. So the focus is on beginner lessons. And so we want to make sure that folks who are beginner swimmers have the opportunity to engage in that first round of beginning lessons. And it's aligned with American Red Cross, and we have alignment with the YMCAs, the Boys and Girls Club, et cetera, and BCYF to make sure that the proficiency is at that first level. And we also welcome it if folks, for whatever reason, aren't able to pass that first round. then they have access to that second round as well, whatever. So yeah, but that's 12,000. Was eight classes? Eight, yeah. Got it.

And then what was the age range?

That varies. I could definitely get back to you. But, I mean, again, beginner swimmer could range as far as if we, you know, if we look at young people who are as young as six, even younger, you know what I mean, all the way up to, you know, you have 13, 14-year-olds who don't know how to swim as well. We've been really focused on providing access. Last year we did a program for those that are on the autism spectrum to have some sensory friendly swimming opportunities as well. did that again throughout our BCUF locations. We had them in four locations this year as well. Again, to be able to, again, remove the barriers, give folks opportunities. We did something for those from our Somali and Muslim backgrounds, and for young girls, which specifies needing a space in which the life of our population is all women, et cetera. It's closed off to the public as well. And so we provided those opportunities for that population as well, and we'll continue to do so.

And so, again, we're really, we take it across the board and it's a wide net, yeah.

Yeah, no, at the Kroc Center, They have like the kiddies pool and I was able to take my son there last year when he was one years old and you know now he's running I hate to say that he's running to pools now, but it does get him. He's a lot more comfortable around the water now.

Good. Just as long as he's not running on the pool deck. Before my life got out, I was just like, blow the whistle, like, no running, you know?

Yeah. When it comes to, you know, we have BNBL, you have the Mayor's Cup. Is there any thought on bringing more, you know, city-wide initiatives when it comes to sports? I know, you know, the Wilsons are, you know, A big football family, so shout out to 50th year. I should have worn my Boston Raiders hat today. But you know, part one of football is big here in the city. Is there any thought I'm bringing any of those

Yeah, I mean, so in addition, I mean, the Wilsons also now dominate football, but basketball as well. So I just want to bring up Madison Park and the work that they do. That's true. And outside of that, I think Tariq does a really phenomenal job. And I'll let him speak to it, so I won't even speak on your behalf or whatever. But I'd love for you to speak about the BNVL. BNVL. Yeah, which was launched last summer. So if you want to just talk about that.

Yeah. So what I feel like one of the cornerstones of the initiative is just not only amplifying the current sports programs that are going on, but also finding different ways that we can find innovative ways to serve the interests that are out there. So this past summer we worked with BPS and Parks to create BMVO because we've seen that there was a large outcry for just supporting the need for creating girls volleyball opportunities. So, just taking the same framework of BMBO, we took every Wednesday, they were having BMBO at Madison Park. So, again, to speak on just the interest, it started off with us just using just started off with like four teams, but then we had about 120 girls try to sign up. So we had to expand it to eight. So that being said, that's just an example of, okay, seeing how something will go.

trying to like serve a potential interest that's out there now saying okay this is a way that you know in this coming next summer we may have to expand opportunities and see how we can get all the departments to work together to you know serve that um So just summing up to say is like when every time we receive that type of interest, okay, where's There is a potential need. My role is to come together with the departments to see, OK, how can we work together to serve this need? And then, again, to go back to the BMVL point, Each department at that point in time served some type of insight or structural input to make that happen. So that's how we're looking to expand that into other sports as well as we move forward.

Awesome. And then piggybacking off of what Councilor Fitzgerald was mentioning, and I'm not at this point yet, but I could just imagine how much work it would take to sign up for three different kids for 10 different programs. Is there any thought around like, and many more. are using our parks or using our BCYF centers. That way, you know, Family Schools Online fills out their child's name and then just clicks instead of having to, you know, write your child's name, your phone number, your address. A hundred different times, you know.

It's a great suggestion. Something that we could definitely look into and like they could probably click off like the areas of sports interest, you know, like baseball, soccer, swimming, et cetera. Great suggestion. Something that we could definitely look into. probably connect with our team internally as well. Awesome.

And then the other thing that I hear a lot about is Funding. You know, oftentimes our youth programs need help funding and sometimes, you know, they're reaching out to little old me and I'm like, I'm Only one person, but any way that we're looking to support them on telling their story, right? Creating them, helping them. and so on create a, you know, a package to, you know, go off and, you know, request money from, you know, a New Balance, right? And shout out to New Balance, $2 million to Sportsman Center Center. But is there any support there just to help them Tell their story and put them out there in front of funders.

Yeah, I would say there's a variety of ways that we've been going about that. I'll start off by saying, of course, the let's play. Lestway Boston Grant is our first thing that we also always share with programs to apply for. What we created this coming year and our second year was the Lestway Boston Relief Grant, because we often receive, like around this time, Folks that are going to the nationals, going on championship runs, emergencies come up outside of the routine grant cycle. So we created this relief grant so programs can apply up to $2,000 to support those type of opportunities, again, emergency opportunities. But the third thing that I'll speak to that is that's why, as Chief mentioned in the presentation earlier, like any support around partnerships and connections and networking, We have a lot of motivation right now just to speak to, like you said, a new balance.

We just did a recent program with Dick's House of Sport that provides a lot of grant opportunities for programs. So these are the programs that we were having conversations with to try to see if there's other ways that they could come together with us to help financially support these programs.

And to add, Councilor, Two other things, too, and I mentioned in my open statement is that we've now shifted a lot of the support that we have through our youth servant organizations to the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. So they have ongoing training opportunities. And so a lot of it constitutes like both You know, you as a youth worker, but for the organization as well, right? So that's an opportunity. Second is from our youth development fund. This is our third year in which we have the emerging learning cohort, basically, is where we bring together, like, Those smaller nonprofit organizations, many of which are sports-based, to come together on a monthly basis to be able to learn you know brand funding you know brand writing etc how to be able to advocate for no additional dollars because that was like a lot of feedback that I received in my first year and so because of that and being a non-profit leader I was just like heard got it and

What I would say is it's been hugely successful in terms of the engagement, the feedback, the collective feedback from folks, folks that we were in previous cohorts that still want to be in the cohort. We're like, listen, we can't do that. We need the new proper folks to be in it. and this year we've partnered with Urban College. And so to be able to amplify those types of opportunities, just to empower our leaders to say, hey, here's access to some resources, some tools of how it is that you could apply for these additional fundings. Thank you for joining us.

It sounds like you're teaching the coaches also how to better serve their athletes as well during that training. I guess the last thing I have is, I think that might have been it, I think you might have covered everything. Well, thank you again for all your work and I'm looking to continue to, oh, no, I do have one more thing, sorry, access. One of the things that we hear about a lot is access. Can you tell me, and this question might have already been asked, how would one get access to like a BCYF center? One thought that comes to mind is, as someone who wants to do indoor soccer, he's just looking for a place, what would be the best way for him to get access?

Yeah, we do have a rental process or just a form that folks can fill out if they do have a request. Typically, the ideal situation is that all of BCYFs are free. and based on the programming availability for our community members. But if folks like a private organization or even a nonprofit organization wants to come in you know to utilize it to do something along those lines there are those opportunities there we're very cautious though just because again as we talk about spaces you know we do try to keep those spaces as open and available for community members as best as possible while programming it you know to meet the community's needs versus allowing like a private institution a private organization to come in and not have it open to anybody else who wants to participate so we're just always mindful of that but I think that is a pathway that they you know folks could say and just being, you know, again, whether it's, and then working in close partnership with BPS as you're familiar with, if it's in a co-located facility as well. Awesome.

And shout out to BPS and all their work that they do around this space. 100%. I mean, Avery, who's in the audience, man, just, I mean, just the amount of work him and his team do on a daily basis. You know, I've seen, I've been at games, you know, in the evening, him and his team would be there. On the weekends, him and his team would be there. Like, I don't know when they not work, you know, so, but nonetheless, yeah, just a huge credit to the work that they do. Awesome.

And shout out to my athletes on the but I'm looking to get a basketball game. I heard Council Weber has the record of high jumping in New York, was it? What was the record, Councilor Weber? Triple jump. Triple jump, yes, the record.

So just on record to say, so Councilor did challenge, you know, like a Councilor Chief challenge for basketball. And what he mentioned is, you know, he mentioned, you know, yeah, athletic prowlers. And I was just like, yeah. I was like, you know, good luck. Best of luck, basically. And so, you know, Tyreek and I are looking forward to it.

I also let you know that my man right here, Fitzgerald, played varsity of that BLS.

That's all I needed here. That's all I needed here.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Worrell.

Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you, everybody, for convening. This important conversation. I apologize that was late. I was actually getting up to speed. Just really grateful for the work of both of you. And I apologize if my questions are redundant, but just I'm really grateful for the opportunities that were presented to me as a youth in the city of Boston. In fourth grade, there was a massive effort to ensure that there was a girls softball league that was up and running. that matched the organizational effort as East Boston Baseball League. and thanks to the volunteer efforts by the DiMeo family, I was able to play softball from fourth grade all the way up through senior year. of the Year, and it created a pipeline of talent that stayed Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. and that was a relationship that I kept with me and still keep with me to this day. Best friends, mentors that really taught me the values of teamwork and leadership and all that so we obviously all understand the benefit of having this in a community. And so a couple of things that have popped up in my district is mentioned here. And again, I apologize if this is redundant, but field and court space. So competition, especially for a soccer league, for example. We just got a new soccer. Pitch, and East Boston that we're very grateful for. So thank you to that organization. The Salesians Boys and Girls Club for putting that forward. But at LaPresti Park and other places, there is real competition for these programs to coexist. What is happening at the city level to address something like this?

What is the pathway to ensure that if somebody wants to play or has Especially for the youth, if they are competing against, say, a for-profit soccer league, and I'm not going to name names of any organizations, but for adults, right, what is the tiered system to ensuring that our youth get first priority? to some of these fields like Lopresti Park.

It's a really great question. And again, I'm going to sound like a broken record. I'll say this before you joined us is that it's a really complex and huge ecosystem. And so we know that to be true. Happy to hear first about your experience in software. I had no idea, so I'm loving that piece. I'll often share, and you probably hear Pedro share it as well, like my first introduction was, Me as his swim coach when he was the age of 12. And so that's how we were able to build that mentorship and relationship as well. So just always love to see that transpire in different ways. and particularly to allocation space. I think as we identify what it is that we have ownership and control over, we're prioritizing our BPS students, we're prioritizing our student athletes, in addition to how it is that we're able both allocate time for our community-based organizations as well. I think the problem that you laid out is very complex, right? Because we also are competing with paid organizations. which is rampant not only here in the city of Boston, but statewide.

And so this is something that's being addressed on the state youth sports working group that I'm a part of and how it is that we're addressing this work overall. It gets really complex, you know, when you bring in AAUs, paid sports leagues, et cetera, that have the means to be able to facilitate or in or the relationships to be able to facilitate access to fields, community spaces, et cetera. That's in close partnership with our department, the Parks Department, BPS, et cetera. But I'd love to hear exactly what are the pain points. And we could definitely talk offline about which organizations have these experiences. What have the experiences been in the past? Has it been that they had access and then now they don't have access? Did something shift and then now it's an adult lead that you mentioned now gaining access to the space? Because we really want to prioritize our young people and that's bottom line. We'll continue to advocate. We'll continue to prioritize that. And so, again, we could definitely have a sideline conversation when we figure out what the pain points are.

Thank you so much. And that's great to hear. I definitely would like to talk to you offline. I've talked to the Parks Department about it. There's actually been bad actors in these for-profit organizations that have yelled at kids. that are just trying to get on the pitch. And I would rather them be doing that than anything else. This is keeping them busy. So let's definitely talk offline about that. You had mentioned the technical assistance. I appreciate the questions from my colleague, like what sort of supports you provide. And I heard grant making is one of them, so that's awesome. What sort of other technical assistance do you provide for folks who are trying to start up? Say, for example, I wanted to restart this girls softball league. Can I come to you? What does that process look like?

So what I would like to say to that is I usually like to work with programs that do need that additional support, like say they're trying to figure out What documentation that they need to go about to set those type of things up. But I think the main points is when working with the departments, usually working with programs who have a structure of their program that's been existing for a period of time. and then therefore we can help them in leading that in that way because again there's been a variety of situations like that. and another one I mentioned is the Girls Fly Football League that BPS has recently just taken part in and leading. It's just like, so that was brought to them by a foundation that wanted to support their movement in that way. So that's the best way that folks can come about it. Yes, if they have questions about how

You know start this league and who they should connect with definitely feel free to reach out to me because again that's the role that I like to play is in connecting people across the city with other partners that may be able to help them start their mission but most of the time we work with programs who already you know have been have established programs and they're just looking for a space or opportunity to connect with the departments in that way yeah and just just add on to that last point like

typically you know the leagues that like the flag football league and everything else that was started with like city-wide leagues and so I think what is that you're bringing up is respect just like one neighborhood for our grant making purposes we do have some type of requirement that you actually have an established record of being able to serve the population, doing this work for several years, et cetera. Granted, this organization existed previously, and so maybe you're able to capture those things. Don't know what the gap is now, like how many years it's not been in existence. but maybe working with those partnerships to really figure out what would be needed. Funding may not be one of them. I mean, funding would be needed, but funding may not be a pathway in which we're able to support at the moment. And so we establish a base. And I get it as a chicken and egg type of situation where you need some type of support. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I just have one more question, if that's okay. Okay. I appreciate again the question of private or philanthropic dollars being Thank you. Thank you.

Through the Let's Play Boston grant, I mentioned in the opening statement, there's been about 75 organizations that'll be funded directly to the tune of about over half a million dollars. So that's been that. And through our Swim Safe Boston has been over a million dollars I know that so that's that's just because it's been in existence longer but nonetheless like it's so collectively you know we're probably closer to two million dollars that we've been able to provide from the city of Boston for sports specific opportunities.

Thank you. And I guess my last comment, and I know that you're probably on it already because of Boston Scores is on it and other organizations, but the World Cup coming to Boston, ensuring that all of the cool things that kids can Get involved with or be a part of. We want to prioritize Boston kids.

Thanks. Boston Scores. I mean, we had the festival in 2026. You know, coming to Boston, which is super exciting, which overlaps with Boston Scores. We have the Project Place Summit, which is the Aspen Institute Summit coming to City of Boston here in May, which is huge as well, which is a national summit. So for it to choose Boston is going to be exciting as well. So we have 2026 is going to be super exciting.

Excellent. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't see Boston's course here. Hi. Thank you for being here. Bye. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I know some of my colleagues may have questions. I know we're looking forward to the community We have a panel who is here and ready to jump in, but if any of my colleagues have any more questions for this afternoon.

Thank you very much. Just a couple quick things. To start, I know Councilor Worrell likes to put me on a pedestal, but my For the record, it's my high school indoor triple jump record, which has stood for too long to... Thank you very much. No state records here. I guess you're talking about it's the BNVL, which is amazing. My daughter played volleyball at BLA in seventh grade. She didn't play in eighth grade, but it was hard to find volleyball opportunities here in the city. Are we doing anything around summer leagues for kids? And maybe to get to that seventh, eighth grade barrier, those kids aren't really going to summer camp. They might be around. Do we do anything with summer leagues?

So I would like to say, because again, even to point out a previous statement that you made, I feel like the focus and having conversations with BPS and a variety of departments, it's really definitely about development. There definitely are a lot of development opportunities that all the departments offer during the summer. Because I feel like one thing that I think a lot of us can speak to, one thing that's kind of been taken away is the joy and fun that kids get to experience playing a sport because it's becoming too competitive at such a young age. So I just had to say again that all the departments offer a variety of development opportunities during the summer. And there's also some camps that take place as well just to give different multi-sport offerings during that time.

And just to add to, Parks does offer sports centers at six locations across the city. And so that's specifically targeting six to 13-year-olds in a variety of sports. And so to Tyree's point, it's to cultivate the love of sport. I think we come from an era where we played you know football in the middle of the street where that car was the touchdown and that was the first down etc and I think that may have been missed now you know and maybe that wasn't as safe as it could have been but nonetheless you know for us for me personally growing up I think the point of where what is that we're noticing is that the more we get prescriptive of like what young people should do, the less joy that's coming out of it. And that's the reason why you see it drop off in young people at the age of 13, 14, et cetera. you see more injuries for the folks who've been overly burdened by playing one sport you know throughout the entire career and they're actually getting hurt you know much younger and younger and so and just the overall Passion fades away as well.

So we do see, we do have the data that participation rate does decrease around the middle school years, especially if they were engaged at a very young age as well. But again, cultivate that. Parks Department, BPS does a major work around like some sports offerings on the weekends, BCYF as well across the board.

Okay, and then just one other thing. In terms of coaches, I think helping leagues find coaches, qualified coaches, what are we doing around that? I know we do have a lot of College athletes in the area. It seems like there should be a pipeline, maybe there already is, but what are we doing in terms of helping local youth sports associations connect with People who can help foster that love of the game for the kids.

Yeah, so I've been having a few conversations, one recently with the Connecticut Sun and then another with the Celtics where like they they acknowledge that as well just like creating that pipeline of just youth development youth coaches uh so one thing that we've talked about is you know having creating a potential you know junior coaches program um but regardless of like and many more. Teaching youth just the elements of coaching and especially in the girl's space. I'm trying to get more girls coaches and increase that number as well.

so yeah there's opportunities that we're creating there that's course for the youth one thing that we've done with the say you know adult a young young adults who are looking to get into certain things we've offered coaches coffee hours we've had Our last one will be next, actually, this coming Friday. But previously this year, we've created opportunities where coaches can come, network, build mentor one another and utilizing that as opportunity that coaches can come and kind of potentially find people that want to be a part of their programs. So those are the two different ways on the youth level and on the adult level that we're trying to create more opportunities for folks to find those volunteers, connect with other folks. And then again, we're looking to create more moving forward.

In addition to that, training opportunities as well. I mentioned that as far as our second area of focus is around the human capital. Training around coaches specifically in partnership with the Positive Coaches Alliance, Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport, just to name a few, just to ensure that as we do recruit coaches that they have the training and the mechanisms available to be successful.

Yeah, just two comments there. One is maybe focus. I know there's an issue with track. There's just not a lot of people who run track, who know how to coach track. And I know I've heard from coaches in the area that There should, you know, we should do a better job training track coaches because more people have exposure to football, baseball, basketball, even soccer. The other two points are, I guess, you know, the mayor's negotiated the pilot agreement with Northeastern and, you know, to the extent that these colleges are going to have more community benefits as part of the pilot payments. You know, look toward cooperation. I mean, Northeastern has a great women's basketball team. You know, they could coach, you know, provide services to our kids that way. Just look at that. The other is just the last thing is swimming.

Hennigan Pool, we've been waiting for a long time for that pool to be usable. So as much pressure as we can have on the right people to Make sure that's a priority and get that done. It's right in the school and it would be a great resource for the community.

We're aligned, Councilor. We're patient as well. Unfortunately, I'm not the individual that goes in and teeters with the pool and fixes it.

Join the chorus.

No, we're uplifting it. Yeah, and they recognize it, but I think they're managing it as best as possible. They've been great partners in terms of being able to amplify it, and they recognize a priority as well. So we're all just, I just want to be very explicitly clear. that we are all in line on the reason why we need to reopen as many pools as possible.

Yeah, and I do hear we're making progress, but, you know, I hear that a lot. But eventually you have to get there. Okay, well, thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you. I do have a few questions and comments before we move on to the next panel. When it comes to the facilities, bathrooms oftentimes if you, it was mentioned like JP Soccer, if you're next to a BPS building or a city-owned building, or a DCR building. I know like when kids play different sports at Garvey Park, if the rink is open, even though we're, you know, City Park State rank, like the door's open, there isn't a bathroom issue. So sometimes you're just close to, so the opportunity may be there, but not every obviously field is near I just wish we wouldn't be spending grant money that I think could be spent much better than paying the custodians because oftentimes to open the school building.

it's the cost and I agree it should be a cost if we're we need to call in a custodian to have the building open that we're paying for that to happen that we're not spending grant money on just access to a city-owned and the bathroom if we could find other ways to make sure that was available. And you may know this, I know the Parks Department, I've had conversations in the past with like Ryan Woods about this, We allow certain or maybe all organizations if they want to purchase their own say port-a-potty or storage unit. So when you go around to some of the fields, like I know One of the football teams in my neighborhood, there is a couple big storage facilities or crates and also porta-potties, but they're locked up because they own them, but they're on city property, so they're only able to be used When that sport is being played. So could you speak to like how that's managed?

Because we could end up with a field where if it's depending on the season or even if more than one team is playing during the season, we have like three or four different Rented or bought port-a-potty, say, and having to be open at different times. And lastly, this goes back to the staffing. And I know this happens at like DCR also. When we turn off the water, fine, it's winter. We don't want the pipes to freeze. But when we pull barrels out after a certain time because we don't want a staff having the maintenance of emptying them, or we don't keep the porta potties open, and many more. Because I know when the conversation and the question comes up a lot in every neighborhood, how do we get bathrooms? And the answer, like I just made it clear, isn't cookie-cutty, right? It's many different ways.

It may work for different sports or different facilities. We have some understanding so that we're sharing the message clearly back to these organizations.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And unfortunately, I can't talk specifically to the questions that you asked. That's a level of detail I just don't have a line of sight on. However, I mean, again, that's in close partnership with our parks department, right? And so I think hearing the three points that you made is heard. I think it goes to, you know, Councilor Fitzgerald's point earlier about like this, This neighborhood-wide focus, if we could really know the seasons, know on which sports are offered, when, at which locations, maybe there could be some coordination. Maybe there could be some coordination with our city-owned buildings as well, whether it's a BPS school facility or BCYF. and to your point and whether or not that's like hey these leagues operate on these days on a weekend on a day where typically the schools close can we help facilitate ensuring that there's a janitor who's able to open up the building so they have access to the bathrooms

and I think that would solve, you know, feed two birds with one seed of like both the need to not purchase or rent a separate port-a-party and to be able to provide access to bathrooms, right? And so I think, you know, that last point I think you're absolutely right. I think it could be unwieldy if we do allow private organizations to have access to means to purchase or rent the storage facility. Again, I don't have a line of sight, but I could definitely envision You know, multiple, you know, storage units, you know, taking up space or parking lot space or anything else like that.

Parents saying, well, there's a porta potty here, but it's locked and trying to explain we don't have the key because we've allowed. Some other person or organization to lock it. And it's their responsibility because they're the ones who've leased it or rented it. So I understand on their end.

Yes, we get it from both ends. But again, to the point of like, if we're just creating, if we're looking for access and availability, we really want to make sure that we have this holistic view. I think that will come in deep coordination. We're working on a counselor. We're definitely working on her. Thank you.

Thank you. And I know we often talk about the big sports. And depending on who you are, I guess that list would change. When I'm thinking of like fail talkie, fencing, wrestling, dance, chair, like the other sports, what falls under your purview? Everything. Everything. Anything or like? Is there like a list and it may exclude some or how do we?

Well, I mean, yeah, there's been some offerings that have been like, ah, you know so but I think you know I look definitely Tyreek but I think you know Councilor Worrell you know brought up lacrosse he didn't bring it up in today's hearing whatever but like I know he's done work around that space whatever so things that it may typically may not you know enter like and many more. Thank you. you know healthy engagement everything else as well whatever but like just in terms of like how do we introduce these multitudes of sports to young people as well so they can have a wide range of offerings ultimately our goal is not only to have the sport participation but to build well-rounded adults as they grow older, right? So these young people who are able to have a multitude

of Offerings and saying like, hey, I know I could benefit from engaging in youth sports at a young age, not even for the sole purpose of going to D1 college and then getting scholarship and then making it to the league. We know those chances are very slim. and we're battling that as well like there's people you know as parents that have means that like I'm a bank on investing now to offset the cost of college in the future right and like those are not always guaranteed right like and that's a gamble that folks are making and it's just like that's the The environment that we're up against. But holistically, I think the sports, I mean, again, the non-traditional ones, is something that we're looking to amplify as well. I mentioned Dragon Boat Racing, I mentioned other things too.

Yeah, rowing, MMA, fencing, this is a circus program. So it's like when I when I first started my job, I was tasked to, you know, just getting directly retired and back to that, try to find all the programs that were out there. I'm still doing that and so what I do right now is when talking with these community centers or talking with these programs and they're trying to because There's these sports like non-traditional sports that exist, but no one knows that they exist. So the best way that I can help support them is trying to tie them into a BCYF center that's looking for more programming, a BPS center. School that's looking to get more non-traditional sports. And so that's the start of what we've been trying to do, like trying to just create those partnerships there. And then any other way that they ask for support,

Whether that is creating any type of programming on their side, that's how I provide support as well, just helping get some more exposure on that side.

Thank you.

No problem.

Do my colleagues have any other questions for this panel? Well, thank you. I know we'll continue to work with you and looking forward to the next panel to hear directly from them. But thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having us. Appreciate you all.

Thank you. So the second panel. So Brad Mahoney, Allison Saucier, Alf Recombe, did I pronounce that correctly? I think Charlie Menakis is online. And do you know the name? And if Reggie Carter also could join us as a panelist. I think that's everyone who's here.

Thank you. Just so you know, when the light is on, you don't have to press any button on the microphone. Sometimes, yeah, so Cora, when it's time for you to speak, she'll make sure your microphone's on and You'll be ready. So thank you for being here. If you could maybe start this end down, introduce yourself again, what organization you're from, and then we can do some opening statements. So thank you.

All right, good morning. My name is Reggie Carter. I'm from the Hoop Collaborative Youth Development Program. We're based out of Boston and Brockton. We do youth sports for kids as young as four all the way through college. So as you say youth, we can go into your 26 years old. We have programs in partnership with Match Charter School. So we're there on Saturdays and Mondays. We have a program called Saturday School where we train girls, skills and drills, basketball related. We have a fall pre-season league that just ended last week, Monday, where we had Six girl varsity teams playing in a preseason basketball league getting ready for today because today is officially the first day of tryouts for MIA schools and

We also do work out in the Brockton, Greater Boston area called Ladies Night.

Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Brad Mahoney. I'm a Jamaica Plain resident. affiliated with a number of different organizations, Jamaica Playing Reagan Youth League, Jamaica Playing Youth Soccer, and in the summer months, about seven years ago, a good friend of mine, David Shapiro and I, started our own travel baseball team in the city kind of as a counter to the AAU club team and have also Run futsal teams in indoor space here in the city. Thank you for having us here.

Thank you. Thanks for all you do.

Thank you all for having me today. I'm Allison Saucier. I'm the director of community programs at Boston Scores. At Boston Scores, we serve programs through BPS, after school soccer and enrichment programs, as well as a high school program run by Ethan Goldman, which serves high school students across the city and also provides post-secondary readiness curriculum for them. Most recently in the branch of programming that I work with at SCORES is our community programs, which serve The community directly in East Boston through Vacation and East Boston FC, which is our recreational youth soccer program. Through the combination of those programs, we serve just about 1,200 students yearly through Boston Scores.

Thank you.

I'm Alf Grakem. Sorry, Councilor Murphy, I should have given you a phonetic pronunciation of my name. Also, I've been on the board of Jamaica Plain Youth Soccer for 11 plus years now. I've also been a coach in the Regan League Baseball, so I'm in Jamaica Plain as well. JPU Soccer. Over 600 kids a season we serve. We run programs in the fall and in the spring. And yes, thanks for having us here and for just arranging for this hearing today.

Charlie.

How are you? Hi, everybody. Thanks for having me in. I do have a prior engagement at noon time, unfortunately. I've been involved in Little League Baseball in the Dorchester community for the past 32 years. All my kids played. The oldest is now 40. For the past eight years, I've been involved with the Merge League of Dorchester Little League and we provide baseball opportunities really year-round now with fall clinics except for this past year and winter clinics. We have about 500 kids in the program when you include the challenger program for gifted individuals.

and yeah I've been on the board of Dorchester Little League for the past eight years and served as co-president up until the past last year so it's good to be here sorry I have to cut it at noon.

No, that's fine. Charlie, if you would like, just because I know you have to go, if you want to speak to maybe some of the Concerns you see or ways we on the council can help support because I know over the years as a member of mine my kids are a little I know Council Fitzgerald's kids play underneath your leadership now, but thank you for all you do in the neighborhood I live in. But if you could just speak to that so we can hear from you.

Sure. I did listen pretty intently to the discussion that took place over the past 90 minutes. Really happy that the hearing has taken place. Very pleased with The initiatives under the mayor for youth sports. Let me be specific. I'd like to make a shout out to Boston Parks and Rec. Dorchester Little League has a wonderful relationship with the team in permitting and we have a great relationship with the maintenance operation team as well. One of the things that's very unique about our Uh, program is that, you know, we did initiate a public private partnership. Uh, with the city of Boston, uh, with the mayor's offices offices approval, uh, in Boston parks and rec.

So we're gifted with a field, brand new field, five years ago at McConnell Park. And if you stop by there today, you would think that it was built yesterday and handed over to The community. So in that partnership, we thank the city for allowing it to exist. And what would be very helpful Councilors is for advocacy for increased funding for maintenance and operation in the Parks Department is essential. The philosophy which perhaps continues to exist.

Put the money in capital improvements and underfund operations because of how the fiscal budget works, how bonds work, and all that complicated structure. I think that particular approach does a disservice not only to the taxpayer but to the families and the youth of Boston. So Big proponent, and I can speak for myself personally, and I think for the board, the more the city can do to analyze where money is being spent and put it to its highest and best use and I would say one of those areas is youth sports. Secondly, I did hear Councilor Fitzgerald mention the DCF families and the children that are placed within the DCF homes.

I would I would advocate to Dorchester Little League Board that if the Chief and Tyreek and the City Council can create somehow A pilot program and initiative. I would advocate with our board to try to reserve a spot or two or three or four or five throughout our program for Kids of all ages who may not be able to participate at the beginning and last to the end, but just to be able to show up and be part of a great youth organization. Councilor Murphy, you mentioned the Porter Parties. and private organizations, nonprofits, typically. would bring a port-a-potty to a field for its own private use.

I'd like to give a shout out to Dorchester Little League Board, the port-a-potties that we supply at McConnell Park, for eight months of the year are left unlocked. We're fortunate with very few issues around abuse and needles and hypodermics, et cetera. So it is an ideal. All the visitors to the park are able to use that facility. We monitor it, gets cleaned at least every week, if not twice as needed. And we even provided Additional port-a-parties during the Mayor's Cup baseball, which happened at two different fields, one of which we hosted.

So yeah, those are my initial thoughts for discussion. I'll comment and then you go to the next person.

Thank you. So I know you've introduced yourselves. Thank you all for being here. If any of you though, if you want to start with any opening statements before we come with questions, that'd be great.

Thank you. Again, the Hoop Collaborative. We've worked with Brian and his brother, so we work with not only the city, but the state, DCF, Parks and Rec, you name it. I think you brought it up, the port-a-parties. We make sure every year we have a partnership with a port-a-party company where if we're doing, say for example, The Heat Wave Tournament. We'll make sure the Port-A-Party is out in Dorchester for the month. So even though we got the permit You know, just for that one particular event, we'll get it out there, you know, the start of August and it's there until August 31st where the whole community can have access. It's cleaned every week. There's no locks on it and it's,

I know they have the Dorchester Eagles, they have theirs, or what have you, but that's one of the things that we definitely need funding for. And it's small, right? For us too, a lot of the program we do is on the outskirts of the city. So we're out in Hyde Park. We're like that Mattapan Hyde Park area. Then we're up at Ronan Park. So a lot of the places where we're doing our programming, it's not easily accessible to the kids. and we did start out just in the summer but with the support we've been able to go year-round so funding for youth sports It's super important, you know, not just, you know, having the right coaches, having the equipment, but the little things, make sure it's a safe space and as simple as just having a place to go to the restroom.

Thank you. I just want to acknowledge that the tremendous work that has been done in this space with the creation of the Let's Play, the number of free events and the BCYF programs and the efforts to do that and kind of unlock and having us here unlock kind of the challenges that we experience day to day is vitally important. and to kind of echo prior sentiments, I mean, increased funding for parks and rec is vital. You know, just kind of speaking from the Regan League's perspective, for example, Murphy Playground behind Muniz was offline which required the Pony Division ages 13 to 16 to basically play at Jefferson Playground which is scheduled to go and so on and so forth. And then we had to undergo renovations It was tremendously challenging.

Field space was a challenge. We were trying to fit in games at English when we could, which kind of drives down the experience for our young men and women. You know, Regan, we have 500 kids. Nearly half of our population is from outside of Jamaica Plain. And like many other organizations, we have a no questions asked scholarship program. So what we've found is over the past number of years, that $5,000 grant doesn't go as far as it once did. So if there's any way to bump that up, that obviously would be tremendously helpful. The other thing I would say within Parks and Rec and perhaps it's related to funding is just kind of greater coordination amongst the field renovations, the good field renovation work that's happening.

You know, a recent example was taking offline Murphy at the same time that Billingsfield, both of them are big league diamonds, and they were both taken offline at roughly the same time, and it kind of created a log jam trying to For me, for our summer team to kind of create a place to play. And so coordination amongst those efforts. And then here we are in December and we shift to the indoor space. So And that's an entirely different permitting venue. It's not through Parks and Rec. It's through the school dude system at BPS. And the challenge there is We want our young people to be active. We want our young people to be playing something. It doesn't have to necessarily be any organized sport, but we want them active. That system is a little bit challenging to navigate.

And many times, there is a fee that's put back on the youth sports advocates. Wednesday, I just got a notice from BPS $515 in invoice for use of the Curley gym for four teams when there's going to be a janitor at the Curley during those times anyways. It shouldn't be. Right? We're creating barriers for our young people. We're creating a challenge for our families. And one thing that's been mentioned is kind of like the age 14 and 15 plus. Finding that space for them and applaud all the good work that these organizations are doing. Physical, social, emotional. happened at home.

You know, I have two kids, senior at BLS, he plays baseball, he used to play soccer, and a freshman, Iris, she dropped this on us over the weekend. I signed up for indoor track. We're like, oh, great. She's also signed up for a few other activities. But I guarantee you the reason why she signed up for indoor track was not because she wants to be running the 400 at the Olympics. It's because of that social-emotional connection. And in particular, With females, it's vitally, vitally important. You know, I've coached girls soccer, I've coached boys soccer, baseball, and I think there's an untapped opportunity here in the city. Talent needs opportunity. And ages 14 to 17, 14 to 18, there was no greater example than this summer. That summer travel team, we had kids from every neighborhood,

It was about as diverse as you could get. We had kids from BLA, O'Brien, BLS, South Boston Collaborative. All over, we had players that had played with us in the past came back. And they had a wonderful season. And you know what? Probably three or four of those kids could play collegiately if it was in their mindset that that was an opportunity. And I'm not saying that's not the end goal. The end goal was the social, right, the connection. And I thought we were done because many of those kids are seniors. They asked, hey, we're going to play this summer again, right? So that's just an example of everything that we're trying to do here. And so I appreciate you having this. Thank you. And thank you for kind of naming that.

The challenges, right? I know many times we have panelists come in and you don't want to sit there and sound as though you're complaining, but it's very important that we do hear from all of you who are like day to day. Dealing with, you know, the phone calls from parents at the field when you find out, you know, it's flooded or all of the concerns you have, it's very important that you share those. So thank you for doing that.

Again, I'm Allison Saucier from Boston Scores. At SCORES we have the unique position of serving both in the school system as well as now serving in a neighborhood youth soccer sense with East Boston FC. We're able to offer that for free to families. Obviously, that's one of the barriers that right away allows families who might be under-resourced to access our programming. Because of that, we see a very diverse population across our school programming. Thank you. Thank you. The Middle School and High School Girls. One of the things that I definitely want to speak to is helping to better align nonprofits like ours with some of these changes that are happening in BPS with the seventh and eighth graders moving into the high school systems because

We're kind of in this in-between right now where we're not able to necessarily serve the same number of middle schools, which are now at the high schools, meaning that we have less access to some of those students as we navigate partnering with new BPS partners in different schools around the city. We want to be able to reach the same number of students in that gap because we know if we lose, especially girls at seventh and eighth grade, it's hard to pick them back up on the fields at the high school level. And we provide excellent free high school programming so if we lose them, In the school program, we don't want them to not be able to participate when they might not be after a varsity or JV spot and come to a semi-competitive level with us on the soccer programming side. want to speak to that a little bit and just say we are in line with that national trend and we want to find ways to work with the city to continue to boost those numbers. One of the other things that's been raised by both sets of panels today is the permitting and space conflicts.

I think there's a real opportunity to have more transparency in the permitting department. to say, OK, we use Daisy Field for a lot of our games in JP to support our JP and Dorchester schools. A lot of times there's little league games coming on after us. If we knew when we permitted that who those partners were, maybe we could give back 15, 20, 30 minutes to the partners coming on after us. But a lot of times when we ask those questions, we don't know who's on before or after, and we might have a game canceled that we could Give back a week in advance to other partners around the city. So I think more transparency in that process is something that would go a long way for both our school-based and our neighborhood soccer-based programming. So I want to speak to that as well. On the community program side, as I mentioned, we just launched East Boston FC, which is our fully recreational in-house soccer league, as well as travel and many other soccer teams who participate in the Boston Soccer League as part of the mayor's initiative. We are extremely grateful to be benefactors of that who have provided that opportunity to East Boston.

In our inaugural season just last spring, we immediately had 270 East Boston kids participate. So it showed that there was a huge programming gap in East Boston, which is an extremely diverse community who's invested in soccer culturally. So we were proud to be able to serve that. We need to think how do we make that sustainable? How do we tap into other neighborhoods around the city who might need that similar setup where someone like SCORES can come in and help support on the financial side of that because we're able to Part of my job is provide the administration of recruiting coaches, which when you're starting a new program is extremely difficult. So I can invest a lot of my time in that and bring in volunteers who speak from a community level and from the advisory board Thank you. Thank you. This is what coaching is going to look like for me.

This is what the schedule is going to look like. I want to touch as well on something that Councilor Fitzgerald raised about how do you sign up for all these programs. You have three kids of different ages. What does it look like in your neighborhood? One of the things we're doing in East Boston is trying our best to communicate with all the other neighborhood sports branches. One of the ones that's been particularly great to work with is the East Boston Little League. We've aligned so that they do their farm leagues and minors after our 8 a.m. soccer session. So all of our three-year-olds to six-year-olds play from 8 to 9, and then they walk four blocks over to Festa Field if they're doing Little League. just helps the parents to know that's going to be something we continue to do seasonally. Obviously, I know it's a much bigger issue than that, as was raised earlier, but the more that the city can help bring together the heads of these leagues, I think the more

you know cooperation and collaboration we can have to communicate out to families like hey yeah East Boston FC is communicating with East Boston Little League you want to do both programs here's how we're going to help make it work for you rather than Somebody taking a full day off to go, okay, what was it last year? We don't have that schedule yet. I think they'll do Wednesdays. Oh, it's going to be Fridays, right? So the more clarity we can provide in systems and conversations we can facilitate, I think is really, really important. I want to also say one of the events that I think is great is the Mayor's Cup. We've participated that in the last two seasons. And it's been a really great opportunity for our kids, both at the grassroots, the recreational level, who only play against our own East Boston kids, to see other parts City, play against other kids their age, but also a great way for us to collaborate with other neighborhoods and community partners. I think there's more opportunity to continue to bring in and bring together the leads of the neighborhood leagues at these events so that we can collaborate and go, how can we work together?

How do you run your advisory board? What are some of the things that you're hearing from your community? We've got students who live in Dorchester that play for East Boston FC because it's easier for their parents to commute from work. Or they go to one of the charter schools nearby and they need a low-cost program. How can we work together? And I think some of those events can be true melting pots for that and an ability for us to really collaborate. I know I found that at the event this time around with Charlestown. They're looking for in-house scrimmages for their teams, and so are we. And it was an opportunity to just talk on the sideline and bring that together. But I think a more formalized approach to that would be great. Lastly, I just want to hit a couple of the systematic and collaborative ways that we've raised, talking about this in-house, preparing for today. I think continuing to support systems that reduce costs for program delivery. The Boston Soccer League is an excellent I think that's an example of that.

But for us, when we look at the longevity of that, there's a grant right now that helps to cover the registration fees. The Boston Soccer League exists in base, which a lot of people here have maybe more experience in the soccer folks than I do. You know, bays you pay somewhere between $600 and $800 per team to play in the league. That can be a really big cost right now for us. That's covered by a grant. You might say, you know, Boston Scores, obviously, yeah, we have a lot of funding that comes in, but when you talk about purely recreational sport, a lot of those grants that we get for scores are restricted funds. So we're still fundraising at the grassroots level for the neighborhood sports. feeling those same burdens that JP might be feeling or Parkway might be feeling and how can we continue to invest in these systems that reduce the cost for program delivery so we can keep costs low. Yeah, and lastly, I think just talking about A little bit more to the fields and the maintenance. The bathrooms is a big one, but also when we think about quality of play, a lot of our kids are beginners.

When you go play on a field that's a mud pit, it makes the game even more discouraging. So if we can talk about mowing and reseeding some of our resources, I think that that would go a long way in increasing the quality of play. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, so again, Alf Grakem from Jamaica Play and Youth Soccer. So the mayor's sports initiative certainly gets the diagnosis right. Only 34% of Boston high schoolers, we're just talking about the high school age, play sports compared to 63% statewide. The gaps by income, race, and gender are real, as folks have talked about earlier today. So there's a lot of areas to focus on, but I'd like to just bring the focus back again to facilities and physical infrastructure. The sociologist Eric Klinenberg calls shared public spaces parks, libraries, recreation centers. He calls them social infrastructure. And his research shows that when these spaces are robust, communities are more connected and resilient. Athletic fields and gyms and ice rinks and swimming pools, those are all infrastructure.

They're where a kid from Mission Hill meets a kid from West Roxbury, where immigrant families connect with longtime residents, and where girls who've never played discover that they can. But somewhere along the way, we, Here in the city, we accepted that our athletic facilities would be inferior to the suburbs. Why did we accept that? Why should a kid in Boston have access to worse fields than a kid in Needham or Newton? So it comes down to two things, I believe, availability and quality. On availability, as an example, our organization, JPU Soccer, so we pay thousands of dollars There are no lights at the field. We can't run our program without that field space, and we just have to bring in our own lights.

That's where we are with it. So we've been doing that for a few years now, and it's thousands of dollars. Across the city, permits are scarce. Indoor court time, as Brad talked about and others as well, it's expensive. And the permitting process runs through a single overextended staffer. Programs end up pitted against one another. JPU soccer, we have the field all fall. We have English high school permitted seven days a week because we run programming there seven days a week. It's three or four Sundays every fall that Pop Warner has the field permitted to them. Now, of course, they need the space as well, like we have no, We're happy to see another youth sports program, but it means we have to actually cancel our programming on those Sundays when they're there. So on quality.

This was spoken to I think really eloquently a moment ago about we build things, but we don't maintain them. We let them deteriorate. We don't fund the maintenance that keeps fields playable and safe. And that's a policy choice. So I've been involved in a couple initiatives to get fields renovated over the last six or seven years. One was Pagel Field. The other is Murphy Field, which we just talked about, which is going to come back online in the spring. Both of those renovations only happened because we brought it to the city's attention. And, you know, we've got the new mapping Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. you know let's what are we learning I think the question was asked earlier like what are we learning okay well we have these spaces you can see them on the map but how many kids can that serve what hours is available who else is using it you mentioned transparency in the permitting process There is none. You only know what you get allocated as a permit. So more transparency can allow programs to help one another with field space. But it's opaque, to say the least. So, You know, we can nibble around the edges, which is, I think, what we're kind of doing, if we're honest, with the Youth Sports Initiative right now. And I applaud the efforts. I'm not disparaging anyone's work. But let's be honest, right? It's really just nibbling around the edges of a much, much Thank you.

Thank you. and more strategically. And it's going to take money and it's going to take resources. So the city needs a real strategy for its athletic fields. One that assesses demand, identifies gaps, and stops treating youth programs as competitors for scraps. Then fund the capital investment and the ongoing maintenance to execute it. Boston kids deserve nothing less than that. So bigger picture, zooming out, what can the city do? I do think, again, I applaud the Youth Sports Initiative. I think it's important, but I also feel like it's probably under-resourced and understaffed.

Parks and Rec is under-resourced and understaffed. So that, I guess, is the issue I wanted to put in front of our city councilors. I know that you are involved in the budget process, but I don't know how much is allocated specifically to youth sports from a budgetary standpoint. What is the sentiment in the mayor's office about? Is that adequate? Are we budgeting enough? Do we really understand the capital needs of building and maintaining It's expensive. I get that. We make it work in Jamaica Plain. We max out the space every season on the fields that we have. There isn't an inch of space available, frankly.

Other parts of the city, maybe there's more field space available, but they have a different problem. These programs up and running. Let's be honest, we're privileged in Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, other parts of the city where you've got dedicated adults and folks who maybe have more time on their hands and are available to put their time towards Thank you. Thank you. There just has to be a new strategy put forward and executed on around field space court space and athletic facilities.

Thank you. Thank you all for bringing your voices and your insight. We're going to go to some questions now. Councilor Lewis.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for everyone for being here. I do think in terms of the budget, we talk a lot about parks and in terms of The thing that comes up in our budget sort of hearings are that there are a lot of vacancies in parks. And so just for example, Jamaica Pond, I'll say, let's do some maintenance at Jamaica Pond. And they'll say, well, You can give us money for it, but we don't have the staff. And it's getting, these are the, you know, often we're talking about the lowest paid jobs in the city. You have to live in Boston to have these jobs as a residency requirement. So we bump up against getting the staff to do it. That shouldn't be the reason why nothing happens. But I'm sure we'll all be thinking about how we can maybe BPS is better at staffing.

They don't have vacancies like in parks. They can use those funds and get the job done. But, you know, I just, in terms of, I guess, for Mr. Carter, for basketball, you know, Councilor Orrell, I failed to mention, I also played varsity basketball in high school. and I have a high school record for the most bricks in a season, I'm sure. What are the issues that you're dealing with? Are there enough? You know, I assume you have indoor and outdoor basketball. Just for indoor spaces, because those are more limited. Do you have access to gyms? Do you max out in the space that Alf was just saying in JP for soccer?

Just give me a sense of what it's like for you to make it through a whole season and the headaches

You know, maybe you don't have any, but... No, a lot of headaches, a lot of challenges. You know, so part of my role is building partnerships and so for example we have a middle school league that we were running at match charter school. But as of today, it's high school season. So we just lost access to that gym because now not only does the high school varsity JV But also the middle school and the girls varsity and JV use that space. So now we're scrambling. We're trying to figure out what we're going to do with the group of kids. We have about 150 middle school age kids that played on Thursday nights, so scrambling for that. But yeah, finding space is number one. Number two, I would say, is having the financing because

Yeah, we like to use volunteers, but not everybody can volunteer their time. Even if we can give them a stipend, you know, like $50 a week, that'll cover at least their gas getting. To our program and back, right? But you know, also paying for like the referees. I know a lot of guys do like refereeing our kids compared to the men's leagues in the city. So if we had the funding to make sure that they get paid, we wouldn't have a problem of securing refs. But yeah, the funding. I've been finding the space and then lastly a lot of a lot of the kids you know don't have a problem getting to the program but then you know now that the nights are getting longer it's 4 30 and it's dark outside I don't feel comfortable just telling the kid jump on, you know, whether it's the 24, 33 to go to Mattapan and then take whatever MBA service

So for us, if we had transportation where we can at least get the kids closer to where they're going, especially during the week. The weekend is not a bad thing. It is trying to find the volunteers. So I'll give you an example. We kick off a Little Rim program. So it's four organizations in one. So we have the Beantown Slam, we have Herc 42 Skills and Drills, The Hoop Collaborative, ADSL, we all come together. Oh and Hill Boston. We all come together to do a Little Rim. We're talking kids as young as four years old, four to seven, herding cats, right? But then what we do is, so if that program goes from, let's say, 10 to 11.30, from 11.30 to two, we work with the kids that are like nine to 14.

and we do skills and drills and scrimmages um and and and it's co-ed so it's not just just for the boys um but uh just finding the you know the staff for it the space and for it again think Thankful for the relationship we have with Matt Stroud and School. So they did set aside Saturdays for us for the program, but it's very difficult trying to maneuver within I know we have the community centers, I know we have the YMCA's, the Boys and Girls Clubs, but I think The programming that we offer is just a little different. I'll speak a little bit about myself. Born and raised in Boston, played BPS, was fortunate enough to go to Cushing Academy for a year. I went to Merrimack College on a basketball scholarship. I went to Merrimack College on a basketball scholarship.

I've coached at Curry College. I've coached Stoneham High. I live out in Brockton so my kids are 21 and 16 so I've coached in the Brockton Community Basketball League since they've been in the third grade so I know the importance of Not only from my personal experience and my kids, but growing up in the city, having that safe space That you can go to. I'm a Daniel Moore Boys and Girls Club kid. Mike Joyce and Dave Scannell and those guys. I grew up, if I wasn't at the Boys and Girls Club in Dorchester, I was at the Lee School. The Perkins Center now. So I'm from that area where, you know, you grew up in the city of Boston every street. was like a gang, you know what I mean?

And if it wasn't for athletics and having a safe space to go, playing in the BNBL, Now we do a peewee BNBL at Ronan Park. Who would have figured the way that it went full circle? But long and short of it is, yes, a lot of it is us donating our time. I don't feel comfortable having people volunteer for a long stretch of time. We've been doing this together for over five years, pretty much since after COVID. The funds to, you know, like I said, simple things. I know Ronan Park was like, Things, grass was growing out of the courts because it was underutilized. You know, having the park and not having anyone from the parks department be able to come over there to clean it up. We had to make several phone calls

it actually ended up happening but I understand like them not having the resources so even if we can allocate that in some of our proposals where we're like hey If you don't have the staff in to do that maintenance piece, let us build it in and we'll take responsibility of it. because we don't only do sports, we also do youth development, workforce development. So we're training the kids. to take on the leadership roles that we have right now. So from as simple as setting up the courts, to making the scheduling, to reaching out, We try to teach the kids what we do too, and God forbid something happens to us, that someone will be able to continue on doing the work that we do. If that's what it needs to do, we'll put it into our budget.

We'll be the people that'll make sure we keep the courts or the fields in good condition.

And I guess, you know, for the other sports in terms of, like, I assume I don't know, for outdoors, I assume basketball courts have lights.

Some of them do, some of them don't. We have to bring the... The portable generator with the lights.

The other panelists have things that I guess drainage is a constant problem, especially for baseball. And Jefferson, they're starting on that process because that field needs... What else are you seeing in terms of... You know, common problems. I will say Pagelfield is in Councilor Worrell's district, so it's good that he's here. We talk about lights there. But is there anything else that you want to highlight that we haven't heard about?

I'll just mention one thing about facilities is hours of available time. So we talked about lights. We live in New England. There's turf fields that have been in, I know the city, but a pause I think it's been lifted but I actually don't know on can new turf fields be built now now I don't want to get into that specific issue because it is a complex one and I think you know there are legitimate Health concerns that need to be understood, but those fields do provide hours and hours of access that would not otherwise be available. After a rainstorm, you can play on them. During a rainstorm, you can play on them. and that matter. So this ties back a little bit to that mapping work that's been done. that really only tells you location and like type of field that it is.

But I think there's a lot more data that needs to be made available in terms of just like hours of availability. I think once the city starts to Get more sophisticated about how it's assessing the fields and the resources and courts, whatever it might be that are in place. and then understand where the need is, like how many kids are there, what areas are not using these fields. Getting more granular about that data and smarter and more strategic about how we use the reason it's never going to be a resource rich environment I think we all accept that on some level. I wish we didn't but we do and we have to so Thank you. Thank you. Younger folks to connect with our programs as volunteers, as coaches.

Kids love it when there's young adults who are teaching them rather than their parents. Their parents are not nearly as cool as the 20-something. or teenage kids who get involved so that's a big and maybe that's where the city can just help connect connect people because it's like volunteer recruitment is a real stress and strain on our programs and I think We see it with our in-house soccer program, which actually serves the broadest demographic. We get more kids from outside of Jamaica Plain and more families are taking advantage of the no questions asked. Financial Aid. So that indicates that it's meeting a need. People are signing up for the program, but we actually struggle with the volunteer Thank you. Thank you.

I'm talking, I just step off the field. There's a dad. He's there watching his son play. And I say, you know, who's your son? He points him out, Caleb there. So we're chatting. He's like, yeah, I'm sorry I got here late today. I work four jobs, okay? And I'm just happy to be able to get him here. And I'm like, I'm so glad he's here. And I often go talk to the parents because it's also a volunteer recruitment opportunity. It's like, hey, maybe you want to get involved, you know? and I'm like this guy's coming yeah but this guy he's telling me a story he's working four jobs how can I possibly ask this guy to to give more time you know he just needs a break just getting this kid there is his mission accomplished so that's another I'm glad you brought it up you know I think programs across the city see that and maybe that's a place where the city can can also be more involved um okay yeah I yeah I uh I just I um

Thank you very much. I will say I once saw this German national soccer team player, Juergen Klinsmann, who's one of the best forwards in the country's history, speak, and he was saying how Our sports are too structured here, especially our soccer. There's a lot of pay to play. He was like, I learned everything I needed to know on the playground with my friends, and I do feel like that is the path to success For all of us, I'd love to see more kids in terms of getting the resources in place for kids to be able to go out and play basketball or baseball or soccer because I think That model is really what's, honestly, more people play basketball. Soccer, we struggle to develop those players because it is just, it's very structured. I know JP Soccer has a More hands off, Boston scores too. So just getting those resources in place to allow kids to go out

sort of explore their own imaginations and make up their, you know, and hone their own games. And that's really what it takes, I think, for anybody who's playing basketball at a Division I school. They've played a lot of basketball on their own. That's kind of how I think about it. Anyway, sorry. Thank you, Chair, for that digression.

Councilor Fitzgerald.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First, Mr. Carter, the grass at Ronan, you're welcome. We got those up right before the tournament last summer, right? There was a lot of calls, but we were happy to see that done. I think the fence is now, I don't know if the fence is fixed too yet, but I know that was coming. All right, I think the fence is fixed. Yeah, the fence was down, but I think that's fixed as well. And I'm proud to have folks from the Regan League here. I don't know if you guys know, I know I represent Dorchester, but I'm a Regan League alum. and he spent all my youth there up until 12 playing and was actually Manny Del Carmen's catcher for a while for the Red Sox and he was just as good Back then, I almost didn't play my 12-year-old year.

How was your hand?

No, it was brutal. I almost didn't play. I said, Dad, I don't want to play because there's this kid, Manny, in the league, and I don't want to face him. Because if I get hit with one of his pitches, I might die. And he said, shut up and go play, right? Go figure out, right? This is life, son. and he sent me, lo and behold, he ended up on my team but even worse, I was the catcher. So I just got hit over and over again. But regardless, happy to see you guys here and all the work that all your leagues have done. You guys have done a great job of explaining. I guess my only question really is in the things that you all figure out that you have to do when you're filling in the gaps in your own leagues or for your youth, right? and you've done a good job of explaining some already. Are there any others where the city could help play more of a role? Like you said, we're talking to East Boston Little League

and we're coordinating that but what you're doing that on your own right is there any other examples like that where you're saying here's how we're solving the issue Here's where we could use some help if someone could take this off our plate, because obviously, again, volunteer work, you know, there's enough. We're all doing multiple jobs. We're all doing kids. We're all doing everything, right? So there's a lot going on regardless. Can you guys think of anything else where you said, well, here's what we're doing that's worked to fill in that gap and if we could get some support behind it? Again, I know you've kind of alluded to several of these, just wondering if there's any more. And I could say it with anyone.

So I was talking to a college baseball coach here in the city last week. And he said to me, I'm looking for a baseball field. And I said, well, Okay, what does that mean? He said it needs to be up to NCAA standards. I said, what does that mean? It needs a batting cage and it needs bullpens. And so I suggested, well, why don't we talk to the city about you sponsoring Renovation construction of a ball field that would give you access but then be a greater community benefit. So that's not something that we've done. But it's an idea kind of like the creative thinking that helps maybe fill multiple needs. And then on the facilities piece,

We're talking about turf and not wanting to go there, but I do think to help everyone's understanding with that, kind of some creative thinking, like there's been organic fill turf fields, kind of understanding From the top, what's the driver behind that? Can we even explore that? I don't think we necessarily know that. And I understand there are budgetary and many other budgetary issues related to that. And so those aren't two things that I'm directly impacting, but I think the creativity and kind of solving facility problems Beneficial because they pay dividends down the road. It just requires kind of some engagement and piecing together different parties and having a willing audience, which I think the city is based on the public-private partnership that Dorchester set up.

Yeah, I want to just raise, I guess, back to the idea of volunteers and the difficulty recruiting. One of the things that I do think we do well is that We engage our high schoolers in opportunities to come be a volunteer coach and we train them alongside the adults. we because we're still kind of in our infancy in East Boston FC we haven't had a ton of high schoolers doing that but one of the pool of students that we already have is we pay our high schoolers to referee our school games which is often a great entry point for them to You know, have a first job, have that sense of accountability, checking the weekly schedule. And then what we're doing now is we're trying to take some of those students who are really invested in that, or maybe close to our East Boston fields, and get them to be trained soccer referees. Historically, there's not a lot of actual referee trainings that happen in the city. You have to go outside of Boston to find those. So I think if this city could help

either cover the cost for those students to sign up. I think it's somewhere like $125, $150 to attend that training. It's a great first job opportunity. And then you're looking at, I mean, the lead we plan pays, I think, minimum of $40 an hour. for these high schoolers to referees game. It's an awesome opportunity. So if we could help to host some of those trainings and opportunities for our high school students to become referees, I think that's a great avenue. One of the things I did this season was we had a couple of high schoolers We sign off on their volunteer hours, they help coach Mondays and Wednesdays, and then they do the in-house games, and we pay them for that on the weekends, and they ref those games rather than coach. So trying to create some some dual opportunities to keep high schoolers on a pathway where they're learning to coach, they're in it, they're seeing it, but then also able to earn some money. I don't know the full reach of the SuccessLink program, but I know we use that for our Summer opportunities, maybe there's some opportunity where the city can support neighborhood programs being able to pay some of those high schoolers as referees or assistant coaches.

I just want to second that. We started a... A program in Jamaica playing youth soccer when we spun up our in-house league. We call it the Junior Referee Program, and this actually gets kids into the referee pipeline before they're even old enough to be accredited at the state level. They can ref in our in-house program, and it has been and many more. And also there's a real skill development aspect to being a referee. I'd say the same about coaching as well. So I would encourage the city to lean in on that piece in particular.

Great. Those are all my questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, panel, for being here. Appreciate all your time. Thank you all.

Councilor Rao.

Thank you, Chair. And again, thank you for, you know, All the work that you do with our young people. I like all the ideas and the solutions that have been brought up. One of my questions is around Funding, right? For us to kind of get a better understanding of how much more funding, right? I know that they have the, I forgot the grant that they just said that they have, what's it called again? The Play Grant? That's Play Grant, right? They get $5,000. But kind of getting an understanding of that, it's just a drop in the bucket for some of your organizations. If you could just tell us, you know what's the cost of running your program in so we could get an idea of you know how much more funding you know the city should be awarding Organizations.

Yeah, so I'll break it down and like what we do on the basketball side of it. So for example, just to run a tournament for a weekend, it's going to cost us about $10,000. And that's just a weekend. But for example, we have the Empower Her Basketball League. It's six girl high school teams We have Boston Latin Academy, we have O'Brien, Neighborhood House, Match, Boston Green Academy, New Mission, right? And just covering the cost for the gym. The referees, the people that do the table, the jerseys, trophies, and all that, just for that one particular program. Looking at about $15,000 and that goes from for like an eight to nine week including the playoffs and we also make sure

that, you know, we like to add elements of making sure that they have, you know, Water Gatorade. We have a DJ there and a play-by-play person as well. to give them that experience so even if they don't make their high school team or don't play at a college level, we try to give them that experience. for a Saturday school program, especially where it's designed for girls ages six through 19. That's somewhere that's gonna run us about Thank you for joining us. and competitiveness, we find a fine balance. So what we do is we break it up where it don't matter if you're a beginner, intermediate, advanced or elite, We have something for you. So we all come in together. We all stretch together.

And if we do like a check-in, we check in together. But then we break you up. But we have different coaches, different skill levels. If you're advanced or elite, you're going to go with someone who's been coaching on a high school, college level. If you're just beginning, we can have a parent who is there with their four or five-year-old Set up the little hoops and just give them encouragement. And then you got that in between where you want to try to give them the skill set, try to push them a little bit but not too much so that they quit. So you have to have the right personnel. So a lot of the funding is, yeah, is it equipment? Yes. Is it space? Yes. Is it paying for the food, shirts, things of that nature? Yes, but also it's the staff. You guys touched about it a little bit.

If we can give a stipend to those high school kids or the college kids who are coming back home especially over the school breaks, you know, or for those coaches that are, you know, dedicating, you know, a couple of hours a week would definitely help us out. So I would say, depending on the program, it could range anywhere from 10 upwards to about Thank you for joining us. that we forwarded over to the fall. Then when we were able to go and see those kids participate in their winter sessions, It makes us come back in the spring because they had so much success. They're like, oh, what else you got? So it gets that buy-in.

and we will be able to reach more and more athletes not just the girls side but on the boys side as well.

So thank you. So the Regan League, we have about 500 people, and we're under $100 per registrant, basically from mid-March all the way through mid-June. and to put the $5,000 in context, if based on the number of scholarships that we gave out, we probably would need closer to like 10 grand to cover that based on, and that number has increased the scholarship request. You know, we're charging under a hundred bucks. We're basically breaking even, maybe making five, six grand a year in a good year. But that additional money, we do pay our umpires. We do go out extensively and... We've got Councilor Weber's team and others. So welcome to join all of you, including former catchers of Manny Del Carmen. So it would allow us to help with

Stipends for additional coaching, coach training, things that kind of the volunteers do and step in. But, you know, it's a lot. We're an all-volunteer board. All the coaches and parents are doing it. and as for my summer team, that's like a break even. We travel around Massachusetts, and it's a $1,000 registration fee, and kids pay what they can. But I'm not a 501 , so I wouldn't even qualify for the funds. Anywhere between, some kids pay 50 bucks, some kids pay 100, but the cost of doing business is about 250 per player.

Yeah, I think from You know, being in the Boston Soccer League as part of the Mayor's Initiative, some of the costs that to even become a MISA member for an organization, we're paying $22 per volunteer to MISA, and we're paying, because we're a non-profit, $11 per player, but that, the Thank you for joining us. going just to that administration fee. So I think that's not even including supplies or wanting to increase the scholarships that we're able to provide. We've given out. I believe we gave out 32 scholarships this season. Whether that covered the cost, we charge $100 for the Grassroots League or $200 to participate in travel, which helps to cover some of the additional costs of the travel program.

but we don't say no to anyone who needs a scholarship so being able to increase scholarships I think is our biggest goal but again we're right now the beneficiary of the BSL has this grant that covers the registration cost for the teams. We're not even currently paying that. And that's $500 for the, it's like 550 for third grade, but then up to like 775 for the older teams per season. So that's a payment you make in the fall. and in the spring. So just thinking those administrative costs alone to play against other Boston neighborhoods, but in a names league that can help people administer what we're doing, provide referees, all of those good things. Those costs aren't even necessarily being covered by the Let's Play grant. So it'd be great to see that extended to help with some of that.

Yeah, JPU soccer, 600 kids per season, and it's about $120,000 annual budget. You mentioned MISA, that's the Mass Youth Soccer Association, the statewide governing body. So there's a per player fee you pay to them. There's also a fee to base. It does give you some things in return, like there's insurance included, which is important. There is a whole regulatory infrastructure around these sports now that make them more expensive as well, which we just need to price that in. But yeah, we're a six-figure operation.

Then my last question is, when it comes to CPR training or Any training on stop the bleed. Does the city provide that to your organization for free or is that something that your organization has to pay for?

I'll jump in. So it depends. So a lot of the times, a lot of our staff are already Working in that line of field. And if I do see something offered by the city, I try to get either the high school students or the kids who recently graduated involved in taking those courses. I know the Boys and Girls Clubs, they offer it along with the City of Boston and some of the community centers. So whenever I see it's available, I try to You know, send some of the volunteers there so that it's not falling on our bottom line.

There is safe sport training and concussion awareness on the soccer side. There's a whole coach credentialing process, and that's part of the Mass Youth Soccer provides all that. Awesome. Thanks. Thank you. No further questions.

Just have a few kind of comments, maybe questions. But thank you all. You mentioned the investment, right, and how we do, and you've all talked. about being on the field or on the courts knowing that we definitely need to invest more. And four years ago now, my maiden speech was on this lack of investment in youth sports and how important it is at the school level, at the volunteer neighborhood level. that we make sure our kids have opportunities like this and when we spend the most per student in the state and our kids as a former BPS teacher we could always use more money but we do have The highest per pupil expenditure. But four years ago, we were only spending of over $30,000 per kid, $76 per kid towards our sports. During the wave of ESSER funding, we were able to bump it up to $96. Some towns spend up to $800 and have less per student, where the state average is double what we invest.

So even at the school level, we're just not investing. And that's why when we go around to these gyms and we see, you know, Thank you. Thank you. We as a city definitely have to, right? We shouldn't be going to McConnell Park or to Walsh Park and feeling like that shouldn't be the exception, right? All of our fields and parks should look like that. and we you spoke about a lot of the things that we could maybe suggest you obviously already doing but I think it's great to highlight like I know Dorchester baseball the challenge of baseball just has this amazing peer coaching program where

There's almost some games you go to and there's like two kids per player because there's just so many kids who volunteer and they come back and it's tied in many times too with like their high school volunteer hours so they might be out of school. that's requiring not always BPS high schools require it, but if we kind of tie into that more with the guidance counselors maybe or social workers at our schools, like how do we get some of these kids to volunteer some of their hours back or like DYH I know you know you can work at the snack bar you can get paid to do the clock on the morning so that frees up an adult coach to be on the ice if a younger kid is in the you know doing the clock so I mean ideas, we have many but we have to definitely do a better job, I agree, of just investing and making sure.

One of the things too, I mean this conversation is around barriers for kids, making sure more kids can play, but also how do we support the organizations like yours who are already showing up for, I mean you said it, hundreds, thousands of kids. are already showing up and we have to make sure we can continue that infrastructure. I've held a hearing four years in a row now. In the next couple of months, we'll have one again where let's get ahead of youth summer jobs. We should be meeting in January and February making sure. And one of the barriers we find out is, It's as simple as many kids just don't have access to getting a copy of their birth certificate on time. It's not that they don't want a job. Thank you. Thank you.

They're working papers, so when it comes to youth sports sign up, like Councilor Fitzgerald said, I remember those days, right, where it's a lot of work and your family calendar is busy, but you wouldn't want it any other way, right? You mentioned your daughter, right, came home and She's gonna run track and she's gonna meet new friends. I remember when my daughter told me, she was doing rowing. Latin Academy doesn't offer rowing but she found out that you could hop on the van that brings you over to Brighton and you're doing like Boston row so Thank you for the work you do I know we're going to go to a few Public Testimony. Some questions people have and then we'll do some closing statements from everyone. Thank you. Goldman, John, Hannah, and Caligo are here.

If they wanted, if they did sign up for public testimony, I know sometimes people sign up thinking, but please come up to one of these microphones. Yeah, you would have. Yeah. You have two minutes if you could just state your name, your organization. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you. My name is John Hanna, and I'm a board member of Parkway Youth Soccer. I've been there for 25 years. Parkway Youth Soccer is a 100% volunteer organization. We have over 1,400 children that play in our program between our house league and our travel program. Being with the program for such a long time, I've watched its progression from being at Heinz Field where we used to store the socket nets up in someone's garage and every Saturday morning we'd have to go up and bring them out of the garage and set them up on Heinz Field. It was much smaller at the time so we didn't have full-size fields. Now we have the opportunity to utilize Millennium Park, It is a beautiful place.

It is probably one of the most beautiful spots you can go and stand and look out and see the foliage and see the Charles River and enjoy the city. This is a great place where you have to look at maintenance. Everything that went into the construction and building of this park requires maintenance so that you're not having to reallocate large dollars to bring it back online because Fertilizing, watering and cutting the grass is very important to keep that maintenance. We provide all of the goals. We purchase all of the hardware, the equipment, the goals, and we keep them up for the 20 weeks that we play and during the summertime. So our kiddos get to play 10 weeks in the spring, 10 weeks in the fall.

All of our coaches are volunteers, so we understand the process of trying to get coaches. One of the things is, you just have to ask. And we find that we have to keep asking, and we find people, I have to say, thank you folks. I want to thank the city. We do have the grant money. That goes a very long way. I want to thank the councilor for putting together this meeting. In three hours, you've covered a lot. But as you can hear, there is a lot more. that all of these programs need. I would welcome you folks to come to board meetings of the organizations to get a real understanding as to what we do and how we have to balance our budgets and make things happen. Come up to the fields.

Come up for a full day, not just to pass through, but stay all day and watch what happens during the course of the day. So with that, I just want to thank you folks very much, and hopefully we can get it done.

Thank you. Thank you, John. Caligo, did you sign up for testimony? Anyone else?

Yes.

Are you here for testimony? Yes. Okay, you have two minutes.

If you could just say your name and your... Collega, I am a BPS parent of five who went to BPS schools. My son is currently at Tech Boston. He's a junior. He started at Parkway, by the way. He's been on the varsity team, playing for the varsity team since a freshman. He did some Boston scores, but it conflicted with his club schedule. We had him at Hammer Club. He's now second division IFA. Last year he also went out for basketball and I do have to say they missed some games because buses did not show up. or come on time. This year he's doing track. So he's done three sports at Tech Boston. They have no real facility. They run up and down the stairs. They run around the neighborhood.

Um, so I am here to, as you all know my position on White Stadium, I am saying We could save $30 million without that pro soccer team coming to White Stadium that could go to Boston school facilities and to Boston school sports. We definitely could if we just built back White Stadium for what it was intended for BPS kids and for community use. We already took away a basketball court. because of that bigger footprint of White Stadium, which a lot of people played at in the good weather. That's already gone. and that's not why I'm here though alone. I'm here also because Certainly, sports takes money, as you've heard constantly in these three hours. And so that would free up some money. I want the women's soccer team. We're a soccer family. My brother was a pro soccer player.

He's head of business and sports at two of the biggest law firms in Boston. First he was at Goulston stores, now he's at Prince Lobel. So yes, I want the women's soccer team. You know where it belongs? Up the street from Millennium Park. at the old West Roxbury High School spot. There's plenty of parking. It's off Route 1 or VFW Parkway. It is a perfect place. And it would be really a boost, I think, to the soccer program there. But I'm also here for another reason. Boston school kids do not get looked at for college scholarships and Four Pro. And there is a person who is head of the BCYF program of the Johnson, he's head of the Johnson Community Center on 68 Annunciation Road in Mission Hill.

Andrew Angus played college soccer and he also played, can I just have another minute? Please.

A few more seconds, yes.

All right. And he played pro overseas. He's trying to get Boston kids recognized more. because he's trying to get coaches and things. Can we support him please? He is the head of the Johnson Community Center. He's trying to get kids that play basketball and soccer and other sports in Boston to have college coaches look at them and pro coaches. We need support. I spoke to the chief about him. He knows Andrew. Lots of people know Andrew. And the other thing is I just want to say I'm an RN in Boston over 48 years. I'm a violence prevention nurse. I think every child in Boston schools and every school in this country should be taking martial arts. because it actually teaches you to be a peacemaker. It is good for physical development and for mental development and that should be part of Boston schools.

Thank you. So we are going to shift to any closing statements.

Thank you for giving me another minute.

Of course. Thank you for being here.

Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you to the chair. for hosting this hearing. Thank you to my co-sponsor, John Fitzgerald, and I believe you were also the co-sponsor. Flynn. And so thank you to Councillor Flynn, Councillor Coletta Zapata, Councillor Rowe for being here, and for all the panelists. I think, you know, we talk a lot about How we can make this city a better place for our kids. And I think while we have a lot of work to do, To take from this, for me, the take is that one of the ways we can make the biggest difference is by supporting are youth sports programs which are run by people here in Boston. And so I'll take that message from this hearing.

and apply it to my work going forward and certainly in the next budget cycle, trying to figure out how we can best help our kids. And I want to thank everyone on the panel and who testified virtually. for all the work that you do. Thank you.

Thank you. No, this was sort of a great trip back in time. I got to admit, I had played Parkway youth soccer growing up for many years, played Regan League, played at the Perkins School in Ball, right, and the tournaments up at Ronan. Sorry, East Boston. It was just one tunnel too far, right? And I am meeting with Dorchester Little League. I'm attending their board meeting tomorrow night and just joined the board of a mixed martial arts I look forward to all of that. My promise all to you is that we will continue our advocacy here on the council and how to fund this. It's such an important, I always talk about the three pillars, like the city gets a triple A bond rating. for how much we can spend, and that's how we're graded, but I think each individual in the city has their own AAA bond rating of academics, athletics, and arts.

and so if we just focus on those three things and fund them I think we'll have some well-rounded people and kids and youth in this city and it will continue to make it the best city to live so look forward to helping you guys fund the gaps and we'll reach back out if we ever need More advice or help understand where to go. So thank you all for your time and your dedication to volunteering.

Thank you for being here for your hundreds, thousands of hours of volunteering for our kids in the city. It's so important. I'm of the age, in my mid-50s here, where there weren't many opportunities for girls back in the 70s for sports, and there's just so many, like I mentioned, I have three boys but a daughter who played sports growing up, played sports in high school, coaching, going back to where she learned how to skate to coach the kids and it's just such a great opportunity and that's who's at the courts and who's on the fields and showing up people who just want to give back so we have to find a way to make sure especially coming into budget season These big investment questions of making sure we're spending the money correctly because like I say with BPS we have the money but are we spending it effectively to make sure every kid gets the opportunity and that you're not up nights worrying, you know,

If you're going to have to turn a kid away or if a game is going to be coached or not, if something has to be canceled because of something like overgrown grass or things that we can avoid. So looking forward to continuing working with all of you. The hearing on docket 1852 is adjourned.