State of Play BATON ROUGE

Project Play’s 15th community State of Play report will explore the state of youth sports and physical activity in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Aspen Institute has partnered with the Pennington Family Foundation for this report on the parish of East Baton Rouge to help identify solutions to grow sports access for children.

The project began in August 2023 with an advisory group meeting. Advisory group members include representatives of LSU, Southern University, Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge (BREC), YMCA, East Baton Rouge School System, Pennington Biomedical, Visit Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge Soccer Association, Traction Sports, and Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. The report will be released in late 2024.

The children of Baton Rouge, no matter their socio-economic status, deserve a chance to play sports and enjoy the physical, social and emotional benefits that come from being physically active.

The Pennington Family Foundation has granted hundreds of millions for improving health and well-being in Louisiana and the world. In the early 1980s, a gift of $125 million from C.B. “Doc” Pennington and wife Irene Wells Pennington seeded LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center, among global leaders in obesity and nutrition research. Since then, The Foundation’s grants have helped to jumpstart Athletes for Hope, Girls on the Run Baton Rouge, Miracle League and Leveling the Playing Field.

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