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Project Play Southeast Michigan works across seven counties, seeking both community-wide and stakeholder-specific input to collaboratively build local solutions that address a goal of “building communities in which all children have the opportunity to be active in sports.” The initiative is a collaborative project between the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, and the Aspen Institute.

Since the release of the State of Play Southeast Michigan report in 2017, the initiative has made significant progress in the following ways:

  • Guided the grantmaking of the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, which has approved over $250 million in grants for youth sports and recreation, parks and trail systems. This includes building new skateparks and playgrounds in the region.

  • Convened 400 community members at public events that identified Reintroduce Free Play, Train All Coaches, and Encourage Sport Sampling as the top priorities and subsequently formed working groups to design new initiatives.

  • Free Play Days and Free Play Zones were created at local festivals, where attendees received Project Play-branded decks of cards that highlighted free play activities.

  • A program was developed for introducing lesser-played sports in schools, increasing access to sports such as volleyball, tennis, squash, lacrosse and rowing.

  • Detroit City FC adopted a $1 fee on tickets to support local youth soccer. Funds go to the club’s nonprofit arm, Detroit Sporting Coalition, which runs Detroit City FC City Youth. In 2022, the team sold 75,000+ tickets in 26 matches. Our State of Play Southeast Michigan report recommended Detroit's pro sports teams dedicate 1% of their annual revenues to support youth and school sports programs.

  • One of the foundation’s standout initiatives is Built to Play, which has invested more than $16 million to support the creation of 20+ skateparks and 70 unique play spaces and playground builds across the foundation’s two regions. The foundation has partnered with regional community foundations to lead local Project Play initiatives, distributing an additional $4 million in small grants to local and grassroots youth sports programs across the two regions.

  • The foundations created Project Play: Southeast Michigan, a multi-year initiative to drive progress in the areas of opportunity identified by the region’s stakeholders.

  • SportPort, a partnership with regional YMCAs and community programs, created 15 free equipment libraries to foster sport sampling and free play.

SUPPORTED BY

 
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