A student-led initiative is making sports more accessible to Santa Barbara area youth. Ready Set Play Sports, founded and led by Dos Pueblos High School junior Johnny Duffy, held its first sports equipment donation drive last week, with the intention of distributing the lightly-used gear for free..
“I really want to level the playing field and make it more accessible because sports have really benefitted me since an early age, both mentally and physically, and so just making that opportunity more available to everyone is really important to me,” Duffy said.
Last week, community members dropped off baseball bats, tennis rackets, lacrosse sticks, cleats, and more in red donation bins located at Dos Pueblos High School and Goleta Valley Junior High School. Duffy and several other students then cleaned and refurbished the equipment. This past weekend, they organized the first of what they hope will be many redistribution events.
On Saturday morning, local families picked up the equipment at no cost at Goleta Valley. On Sunday, January 25, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., youth and their families picked up more free gear in the Dos Pueblos parking lot.
Duffy says he was inspired to develop the project after seeing peers struggle with financial barriers around athletics. “A lot of people resort to high school sports because the club fees are astronomical,” he said. “I mean, you can see club fees just for yearly participation within the program are upwards of $3,000 a year, not even including gear and tournament fees and everything else. So for some people, it’s really just not very feasible for them to get involved in the sports they want to be at the level that they want to be.”
Any unclaimed gear will be sold to Play It Again Sports, said Duffy. He plans to use the proceeds to create a college scholarship for a Santa Barbara County student-athlete. Ready Set Play Sports will host another donation drive later in the semester.
