We’re thrilled to announce a grant of $250,000 from the NFL Foundation Grassroots Program, a partnership with the Minnesota Vikings, the NFL Foundation, and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. This vital Field Surface Grant will help install an artificial turf field at the North End Community Center. The award is one of the grants totaling $3 million for the renovation and construction of football fields located in NFL communities nationwide.
The new field area will support football, three (65’ wide) soccer fields, two little league baseball fields, and adjoining sepak takraw/kato/badminton courts. This combination of fields serves the needs of the area as determined by eighteen months of community engagement and conversations with current and potential partners.
The redeveloped fields will adjoin a new 25,000-square-foot building to be located at 1025 Rice Street, adjacent to the Rice Street Library and directly across the park from Wellstone Elementary School.
To Kyle Johnson from the Karen Football Association, who wrote a letter of support for the grant, projects like this are about much more than a sports field. “I remember having a conversation with one of our 15-year-old players before one of our games. We were getting ready to play a team from a very wealthy suburban community. She says to me, ‘Coach, we are going to lose this game.’ I said, ‘Why do you think that?’ She replies, ‘They have more money than we do. They have more opportunities than us. They can afford to play on club teams and nice fields.’ This conversation will always stick out to me. How is it that a 15-year-old girl can think that people with more money and more opportunities are better than she is? To people in underserved communities, the field is much more than a playing surface. It is a symbol. A symbol representing equity and belief. It gives hope to communities that feel like they have been left out of opportunities in life.”
The Minnesota Vikings have included the NFL Grassroots Program as one of their community initiatives, and it is through the generous contributions of the NFL teams that this grant is possible.