“The most critical part of a child’s day begins after the final bell rings.”- US Soccer Foundation
On any given night after dark in South Sac, you might assume a parent would want to keep their child at home, safe and indoors. On any given weekend in South Sac, you might assume the local youth are disengaged, playing video games, texting their friends and maybe even looking for trouble. On any given day in our community on Mack Road, you might be tempted to make a handful of negative assumptions. Would you guess that local families would be waking up early every Saturday morning to gather their family and cheer on their local youth soccer league, just like any other community in Sacramento? Probably not.
The ReIMAGINE Mack Road Foundation, in partnership with the US Soccer Foundation and Street Soccer USA-Sacramento, is changing the way families spend time together in South Sac and keeping children away and indoors is not a part of the solution.
The US Soccer Foundation “Soccer for Success” Program is a nationwide effort established in 1994 to impact youth in underserved communities to inspire healthy habits and develop critical life skills. The US Soccer Foundation provides one week of intense training for coach-mentors every summer, as well as providing uniforms and soccer equipment for the children on the team. In the fall of 2016, ReIMAGINE Mack Road introduced the Soccer for Success Program to our community and the interest level was overwhelming! In ReIMAGINE Mack Road Foundation’s inaugural season, we had over 120 youth between the ages of 5-14 who live in the local 95823 zip code participate. For more than half of our participants, this was the first time they were able to participate in organized sports due to its low cost of just $10 a season, which includes uniforms, shin guards, soccer balls and healthy snacks! By the end of the first season, not only did our youth show an improvement in their soccer and communication skills, overall health and lowered BMI score, we saw families of all backgrounds gathering to support one another every week, for 12 consecutive weeks.
Due to the popularity of our soccer program and vast improvements of our youth participants’ skills, we decided to team up with Street Soccer USA-Sacramento to expand our coaching staff in preparation of our second soccer season in Spring 2017. With this strong collaborative effort between the three organizations, soccer has proven to help our local youth (boys and girls) establish healthy habits and develop critical life skills through caring coach-mentors and family engagement.
Interested in having your child build confidence and improve their health in a safe environment? Stop by our Sacramento Summer Night Lights Program on Thursday nights between 7pm-11pm during the summer months. Street Soccer USA-Sacramento has teamed up with us again to provide a FREE soccer league to all ages and skill levels. Call The Mack Road Partnership for more information at 916-706-3833 or email us at info@mackroadpartnership.com.