According to a study conducted in 2019, Team sports may be an important and scalable resilience builder. For those with adverse childhood experiences, team sports participation during adolescence was significantly associated with better adult mental health outcomes, especially for males, including a lower likelihood of having ever received a diagnosis of depression or anxiety and having current depressive symptoms. The good news is that there are a lot of sports in the Santa Maria Valley/Southern San Luis Obispo County, but often families can’t afford for their child to participate, or they don’t know how or where to get the kids involved. 
In response to the toxic stress and mental health effects following the COVID-19 Pandemic, Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley developed and launched A Team For Every Child with one-time funding received from a prevention and mitigation grant. The concept was to utilize the beneficial impacts of community sports to reverse the toxic stress kids can suffer when exposed to prolonged problems such as caregiver neglect, substance abuse, violence, or emotional abuse.
A Team For Every Child program awards youth with a sports scholarship to assist low-income families in covering registration fees and equipment costs so that their child may participate in whatever sports program they choose. The funding for this program ended in June 2022 and is not renewable. Receiving donations and support from the community will assist in sustaining funding for this new program to become permanent and continue creating a positive impact on the youth in the Santa Maria Valley/Lucia Mar Unified School Districts.
- A small donation of $50 could cover 1 month of sports registration fees for a child.
- A $300 donation can assist youth with the gear required to participate in their selected sport.
Make a donation to A Team For Every Child.