Our Vision
An active, inclusive, and enriched community life for children and youth, regardless of the ability to pay or play, within a diverse city.
Our Mission
Moresports creates and facilitates recreational programs that promote sport and leadership development. Supported by a city-wide network of community partners, we ensure positive engagement and experiences among youth.
Sports programs are important because:
• there is low sport participation across Canada
• when made accessible, sports activity can positively impact all those involved
• participation helps youth develop leadership skills which may be healthfully reflected in the community
Our Purpose
Moresports is a registered non-profit society that aims to make sports and leadership opportunities accessible to all children and youth. As our programs are developed and run by the community, Moresports is able to stay in tune with the needs and diversity of the community to make inclusive and sustainable programming. Our goal is to work with our community partners within a city-wide framework to bridge any gaps between kids and youth and their access to local sports.
We believe that every kid has the right to play sports. By making sports activities readily available to kids, we provide opportunities to bring youth closer to their communities.
Our Strategy
The Moresports strategy is a collaborative approach. We use sport as a tool to empower youth in leadership roles and support them to build healthy, connected and resilient communities.
Our “pay-what-you-can” model relies on our partnerships with school districts, municipal parks and recreation and the community. By using existing resources (infrastructure, staff and youth), we are uniquely positioned to develop programs which consider financial and physical barriers for any participant.
Youth leadership development is an important focus at Moresports. Not only do kids respond better to youth as their coaches, but mentor-based relationships go a long way towards building confidence and belonging for both child and youth leader, keeping them engaged and purposeful.
Moresports leaders tend to stay on for years, becoming community role models who often inspire those they coach to follow in their footsteps. One volunteer coordinator can train ten youth coaches, who can go on to coach hundreds of kids all across the region. This collaborative strategy is key to our sustainable and impactful approach.
OUR STORY
Where we began
One spring day in 1998, some kids were kicking a soccer ball around a local park, accompanied by one of the kids’ fathers. A man approached them and asked them to leave; the park was reserved for soccer clubs with permits.
When the father asked how local kids could join such a club, he was told it would cost $125 per child. Each family would also have to contribute to the costs of equipment, coaching and transportation. As the kids watched, a stream of cars arrived, and two teams from the affluent West Side piled out, pulled on their expensive uniforms and cleats, and took over the field. This encounter highlighted the stark contrast in sport access between kids of different backgrounds and neighborhoods.
Although 75% of Vancouver kids at the time lived in the Eastside, the city’s sports programs mainly served those from the West Side. The problem wasn’t just money. An inner-city sports program would also need coaches, equipment and places to train and play. It would have to support ethnic and cultural diversities, overcome language barriers, and much more. The community itself needed to restructure to make way for new partnerships and encourage the development of new ideas that benefit the many, not the few.
East Van Soccer started up in 1999 and by 2002, this initiative evolved into Moresports. Since then, Moresports has continued to grow organically in the Lower Mainland where kids and families need it.
Today, Moresports proudly includes 12 hubs and services 24 Metro Vancouver neighborhoods with thousands of participants.