This Sunday, millions of eyes will be glued to the plays unfolding on a field in Miami as the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers battle it out for the Lombardy trophy.
We'll be watching, too, and thinking about all the fields, and all the plays, that lead up to a game like Super Bowl LIV. For more than 20 years, LISC and the NFL Foundation have partnered to build or refurbish football fields in underinvested places. In that time, we've put $61 million into a total of 376 fields in communities across the country, helping restore a vital resource to the children and adults who live there and sparking investment and economic development in the surrounding neighborhoods.
In the Chief's home market alone, the Grassroots program has invested nearly $2 million to revitalize 14 Kansas City fields; in San Francisco, we've injected nearly $1 million to refurbished five fields.
Countless young people have developed discipline, sportsmanship, healthy bodies and lasting friendships on that turf. Parents and whole communities have bonded over their love of their children, and of the game. Who knows: maybe the stars of future Super Bowls will make their first running play on fields supported by the Grassroots program. But one thing's for sure: everyday kids—stars in their own right-—are playing on them every single day.
