Read on to learn more about our organization, recent donation efforts and what this blog will focus on.
Welcome to the Replay It Blog! We are a 501(c)(3) youth-led nonprofit organization dedicated to giving children the opportunity to participate in sports through donations of gently used sports gear.
The concept of Replay It was formed from a growing pile of sporting equipment sitting in the garage. I played soccer for 8 years, and every year I would get a new jersey, and I would often outgrow cleats, shin guards, and other equipment. Each year, a barely worn jersey was added to the closet pile, along with the cleats and other shoes I had outgrown. The same went for Shaan who played baseball, basketball, and soccer for years. Year after year, the pile of old 'keepsake' jerseys and outgrown equipment grew. This is not only the case for us, but many other families in America as 69% of girls and 75% of boys play youth sports, which means that there is a great deal of gently used pieces of sports equipment that could be reused.
When we heard one of our family friends talking about children at a girl's sports academy he visited in Africa who didn't have the cleats, shin guards, and clothing necessary to play soccer, we were shocked. Just a simple collection of used cleats and jerseys made a huge impact. It was from this that the idea of Replay It was born.
Blog Focus
Replay It was officially launched in August 2020. We have a fully functioning website (www.replay-it.org) and our founder and leadership board have been hard at work planning our drives and other initiatives, such as this blog. This blog will be a place and resource to learn about children in sports. However, this blog will be focused on girls in sports. By age 14, many girls are dropping rates at two times the rate of boys. In addition, annually, boys get 1.13 million more sport opportunities than girls. These alarming statistics prompted the start of this blog, where we will showcase statistics and voice our opinions on many aspects relating to girls and women in sports.
Recent Donation Drive
In regards to our drives, we conducted and recently concluded our first formal drive in September. Replay It partnered with Hearts and Homes, an organization dedicated to empowering and supporting the lives of children removed from their living situations through shelter and foster homes. We collected over 1000 pieces of individual gear. The gear varied from soccer and basketballs to cleats and pop-up goals, but more to come on the drive specifics in another post.
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for upcoming posts!