A grant announced this week will promote health among youth in the Argentine area of Kansas City, Kan.
The Argentine Neighborhood Development Association has received a $25,000 grant from the Kansas Health Foundation’s Recognition Grants program that will focus on youth futsal activity in the Argentine area.
Futsal is a type of soccer that is played on a hard-surfaced court, and it is becoming very popular in Kansas City, Kan., with Sporting Kansas City helping to build futsal courts throughout the community.
According to Ann Brandau Murguia, executive director of ANDA, the $25,000 grant will help measure health improvement for children when they enter the futsal program and then see what the improvement is at the end of the program, if any, in terms of the children’s overall health.
The grant is in partnership with the University of Kansas Medical Center research team and Sporting Kansas City, she said.
“All the (UG Commission) districts are getting futsal fields,” Murguia said. “ANDA is just taking it to another level.
“This research will be able to tell us whether this particular program will make a difference,” Murguia said. “If it does make a difference, it will determine whether we offer additional programming to our youths in our area.”
She said there is a lot of youth interest in soccer in the Argentine area, and several leagues currently play there. During the summer, almost all the parks are crowded with either soccer or baseball, she said.
All children are to be included in this new Argentine futsal program, regardless of their physical condition at the outset of the program.
This grant will fund a program at Vega field, across from the new Walmart on 24th Street between Metropolitan Avenue and Strong Avenue. The futsal court at Vega park has not been built yet, and is planned to be built by Sporting KC in the early spring, she said. Closer to the time it is completed, there will be signups for kids to participate in the program, she added.
All the details of the soccer program will be set up by Sporting Kansas City, she said. The KU research team will collect the health data at the beginning of the program from participants and then provide the collective health data at the end of the program.
ANDA’s role will be to do outreach to the community to get more kids interested in the program and in signing up, she said.