O'Fallon Parks and Recreation Seeks Community Help to Obtain Grant

Now through May 31, parents, residents and coaches can help the earn a $2,500 grant to enhance the city’s youth sports program.

sponsors The Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports Community Grant Program and distributes 20 grants annually. The grant money is used in communities to purchase equipment for youth sports programs.

The Liberty Mutual grant program teaches and fosters a cooperative spirit between coaches, parents and players. It guides parents and coaches in ways to help their children garner benefits from community youth sports.

Greg Gordon, senior vice president of consumer marketing at Liberty Mutual stresses that the program targets many of the issues in youth sporting events by shining a positive light on what it means to be a responsible coach and a responsible sports parent.

Roy Hayes, recreation manager for O’Fallon, said if the city wins one of the grants, the money will be used to purchase additional sports equipment such as volleyballs, tee-ball tees and other equipment for various youth programs in O’Fallon. The grant money will be split among several different O’Fallon youth sports, based on the needs of the programs.

 “O’Fallon winning the grant will help make the current dollars go a little bit farther,” Hayes said. 

Hayes said that this is the first time O’Fallon has tried for this particular grant. While the current budget has money for some new equipment, getting the grant would mean that some older equipment can be replaced. That in turn, may help keep fees as low as they are for players.

Obtaining the grant is a simple three step process that takes just a few minutes for parents and coaches to complete. Parents and coaches log onto www.responsiblesports.com.  Follow the link that says, “Here to help an organization or school earn a Responsible Sport Community Grant?”

There is a short course to read on becoming responsible sports parents and coaches, then participants take a quick, 10 question quiz. Upon completion, participants then note the organization – City of O’Fallon Parks & Recreation,  at the end of the quiz. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes to complete.

To win the grant, City of O’Fallon Parks and Recreation must have enough participants completing the quiz correctly to be in the top seven of all organizations competing.

Amy Anderson, O’Fallon’s recreation coordinator, said that if enough people complete the course and make the city one of the top contenders, O’Fallon could win a grant.

According to their website, The Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports Community Grant Program is open to any not for profit sports team, organization or school and divided into categories based on the number of participants.

O’Fallon’s Parks and Recreation Department will be competing for one of seven grants targeted toward organizations with more than one hundred participants.

Past local winners of the grant include the Missouri Chargers Baseball Club from Chesterfield in 2010 and the St. Charles County Youth Soccer Organization from St. Peters in 2008.