In 2018, the Aspen Institute partnered with the Community Foundation of South Alabama, the Jake Peavy Foundation, and the Caring Foundation of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama on State of Play Mobile County. This initiative was designed to help close the opportunity gap for youth sports in Mobile County, Alabama, where child poverty is at a staggering high.

The Aspen Institute and local community leaders worked together to conduct a regional assessment of the landscape of youth sports in the community and produced a State of Play report that identifies key findings known to get and keep kids active in sport and provide recommendations for next steps.

Since the release of the State of Play report in 2018, the initiative has made significant progress in the following ways:

• The Community Foundation of South Alabama partnered with Good Sports to provide $20,000 in equipment, footwear and apparel to economically disadvantaged kids, through the foundation’s “Closing the Opportunity Gap” initiative.

• The community foundation partnered with the U.S. Sports Academy to launch the Lower Alabama Youth Sport Initiative, aimed at helping connect the youth, coaches, and parents of Lower Alabama with sport-related, community resources and events.

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