New York City Public Schools have teamed up with the organization Street Soccer USA to renovate and build soccer fields across the city, in a program dedicated to improving the lives of children through better places to play. One of the newest fields sits in Claremont Village in the Bronx, where it was the focus of a recent News 12 report on rebuilding the borough and the impact the field has had on the neighborhood.
For Rohan Allen, the program manager of Street Soccer USA, the impact is something he can hear. He says the sound of children cheering on their teammates is one he will never get tired of. To him, that noise is a sign that the fields are doing exactly what they were built to do, giving young people a reason to show up, play together and feel part of something on a regular basis.
Allen says the benefits go well beyond the scoreline. When children play a team sport, they feel empowered and they feel confident, he said, and staff notice real growth in the players' leadership across different areas of their lives. In his view, building the fields is as much about developing young people off the pitch as it is about the game that takes place on it.
At the school level, the change has been just as striking. Luis Torres, the principal of CS55, describes the program as life-changing for his students and does not shy away from strong language about what it means to them. I like to tell people that it is saving lives, he said of the field and what it offers the children who use it every day in the neighborhood.
Torres connects the field directly to keeping children safe. For a lot of our children, had they not had this stadium or soccer field, they would be out in the streets doing other things, he said, adding that no one knows what could have happened to them. The field, he said, gives the students a safe space to play and to engage with their community rather than drifting elsewhere.
The field's reach extends well beyond a single school. While CS55 students are among those who use it, they are not the only ones, with more than 24 schools taking part in programs and games at the site. That shared use turns one field into a gathering point for students from across the area, multiplying the number of children the project touches.
Taken together, the effort reflects the idea behind the partnership between New York City Public Schools and Street Soccer USA, that renovating and building fields can do more than improve a patch of ground. In neighborhoods like Claremont Village, the organizers and educators involved describe those fields as safe spaces that give children somewhere to belong and a reason to stay close to home.