Responsible Sports Community Grant Hall of Fame

Bridgewater Youth Soccer Association is thrilled to have won one of the Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports Grants. We are grateful to our parents and coaches who were receptive to our efforts of promoting Responsible Sports. We appreciate Liberty Mutual's support in offering a great strategy for promoting teamwork and good sportsmanship. Our association does not receive any funds from the town or state. Our programs run 12 months a year by the dedication of volunteers. The grant money won will be put towards much needed repairs of our field irrigation system. Thank you Liberty Mutual and the Responsible Sports team, for offering this grant and for caring about children!!

The Bryant Soccer Club would like to sincerely thank Responsible Sports and Liberty Mutual for provide us the chance to compete for one of the $2,500 Community Grants. With support from our coaches, players, parents, and community, we were able to secure one of these tremendous rewards. We intend to use these funds to improve our practice and game facilities and to provide professional trainers to aid in player development and technical skills. Again, thank you Responsible Sports and Liberty Mutual.

The Lake Zurich Baseball and Softball Association is proud and pleased to win the Responsible Sports Community Grant. While we are obviously appreciative of the financial opportunity this provides, we are most pleased to feel the cultural impact on our program. Our parents stepped up and continue to do so to run a fun program.

LZBSA will use the grant to fund equipment purchases. Specifically we look to improve the quality of catching gear for those teams with the greatest needs.

The Loomis Basin Dolphins are spearheading a campaign to fund much needed improvements to our 40-year old pool. This generous grant from Liberty Mutual will assist us in our efforts to build a larger aquatic center which will benefit the team, the local high school, and the community.

The Meridian Police Activities League (MPAL) is very excited to win the Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports Community Grant! What thrills MPAL so much is the opportunity to align the values we share with the Responsible Sports program, providing fun and exciting activities to area youth emphasizing teamwork, sportsmanship, and game fundamentals. The grant will be used to support the MPAL Scholarship program as well as to provide ongoing coach and parent education initiatives. On behalf of all MPAL participants, parents, coaches, volunteers, board of directors, and all supporters of MPAL, we would like to thank Liberty Mutual and the Responsible Sports team for offering this program to assist us in our goal to educate all participants on the value of Responsible Sport Parenting and Coaching.

We are thrilled to win this grant and be able to extend our budget for this year. It also gives us satisfaction to see our small valley support our program to this level. We need to thank Middletown Valley for their support. This was definitely a group effort. Last year we purchased a portable tumble track mat with the help of our organization. The cheer program agreed to pay the money back to the MVAA. We will use this money to pay for the mat. We will also be purchasing bodysuits for our U10 Competition Squad. We are SO excited!

Our organization and community is incredibly excited to have won this grant. One of our hometown heroes, Pittsburgh Pirate legend Roberto Clemente, said, "Anytime you have the chance to make a difference on this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth." Riverview Athletic Association would like to thank Liberty Mutual and Responsible Sports for helping to make a difference in our tiny part of this world. In addition to teaching our parents and coaches better sportsmanship, this program has shown everyone in our small communities that together, a small group of committed, proud, and caring neighbors, can achieve great things when given the opportunity. We are truly grateful to Liberty Mutual and Responsible Sports for giving us such an opportunity. We intend to use the funds for a permanent batting cage and safety fencing for one of our baseball fields. Thank you again for making these necessary field improvements a reality.

We work so hard to make baton twirling a family-oriented sport that is affordable for everyone and this will help us promote just that. There are two things we would like to do with the $2,500 Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports Grant. First, we need to replace some of our sound equipment that our girls use during parades. It is so old and needs to be replaced but we haven’t had the funds to do it – now everyone watching us twirl in the parades will be able to hear our music even better! The rest of our grant will go towards the gym rental we pay each year, this will help keep tuition low so as many people as possible can enjoy the sport of baton. Thank you for caring about the youth in the country and realizing that when sports are taught with values and life lessons that these kids will grow to be wonderful adults and will teach their children the same.

This grant gives us another fighting chance at keeping that Olympic dream alive for our young skaters. It was only a few months ago that we were seriously considering folding the club because of financial struggles and lack of interest. Riding on the tails of the Vancouver Winter Olympics generated a lot of interest, but created an even bigger financial mountain to climb. We plan to purchase more safety equipment and mats/padding along with getting a few pairs of club speed skates for our “Learn to Speed Skate” program. Each pair of speed skates costs about $400! What a wonderful feeling of accomplishment! It is unbelievable that we won the grant!

We are very excited about winning this grant because it will greatly benefit our organization. It was a fun and educational way to raise money. We will use the grant to help our club offset the cost of pool rental; to assist our scholarship program; and to assist in retiring debt due to the former president’s illegal activity with the club’s finances.

We would like to thank Liberty Mutual for their generous support of small sports organizations like ours. The $2,500 we receive will be used for competition apparel and to help cover the competition and travel expenses for all of our athletes as they pursue their athletic dreams.

We are planning to use this grant to get our team to the week-long Dizzy Dean World Series in Eastridge, TN where our boys will get the full experience of meeting teams from all over the United States. They will have the experience of trading gifts and pins with all the participants. They will also get to compete with youth their age from all over and see how they stack up. It will be an incredible experience for all these boys and one that they will never forget.

The Lou & Gib Ice Arena (home of the Newark Ice Hockey Association) is extremely happy to have been awarded the Responsible Sports Grant. We will be utilizing the funds to help host District Competition for Figure Skating and Synchronized Skating Team, and purchase supplies for our Learn to Skate and Learn to Play Hockey Program. Thank you again we are extremely grateful.

This is a tremendous boost to our program! The kids and the growth of the program will benefit tremendously! We plan on purchasing equipment and jerseys for our Learn-to-Play program so we can encourage new recruits to our program. This will enable kids to try out ice hockey without the need for their families to purchase all the equipment until they know whether the child is really interested in continuing with the sport.

The SFYHA plans on using the Liberty Mutual grant to enhance our scholarship fund, purchase training aids for both on- and off-ice practices and start a promotion of "Honoring the Game, through the elements of ROOTS" within our Sabercats organization.

A big Thank You to Liberty Mutual for sponsoring the Responsible Sports grant, USA Hockey for promoting responsibility in youth hockey and the amazing parents and coaches of the "San Francisco Sabercats" for making this happen! The San Francisco Youth Hockey Association is small compared to other clubs, but the dedication of many parents really did pay off.

I want to thank the community of Coeur d'Alene for helping Coeur d'Alene High School earn this grant. The grant money will be placed in the general activities budget to help CHS activities continue the success we have experienced over the past years.

East Mountain High School is thrilled to be the recipient of a Liberty Mutual Responsible Sports grant. We offer an athletics program for our students because we strongly believe that it gives students the opportunity to learn how to excel. Not only will the funding help support our student-athletes, but the entire process has helped our school community approach sport as a learning process.

One major item on our list is refinishing the gym floor. East Mountain High School shares a gym with the nearby Vista Grande Community Center. By sharing the facility, it gets used more frequently and provides a service for the community. The shared space arrangement is unique in New Mexico and provides a better use of public investment. After heavy use, the floor needs to be refinished to be kept in top shape.

Because it is a community victory, we are hoping to combine this grant with another corporate sponsorship and purchase a new scoreboard for our stadium field. The current scoreboard is 25 years old. Our stadium is used by high school and youth sports. We think everyone would appreciate enjoying something that their efforts had helped to purchase.

We never thought a school the size of LaCrosse Elementary (approximately 335 students) could compete on a national level for such a grant. When we received the official news that we had won the grant, we immediately began to celebrate and think about plans for upgrading our school’s playground. This is such an exciting opportunity that has involved many throughout our community.

This grant will help our booster club continue its goal of supporting our sports teams with equipment that the school budget can not buy. Our teams will be better prepared to compete with the equipment the boosters club can now provide.

The Plymouth North Wrestling team and the Plymouth Lacrosse programs are self-funded. The entire budget is funded by fundraising. This grant will help relieve some of the costs associated with running these programs. The money will be used to help offset equipment, supplies, transportation, and officiating costs.