Soccer Partnerships to Improve Children’s Lives

The mission of the Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families initiative at Nationwide Children’s Hospital since 2008 has been to make a difference in children’s well-being where they live, through housing, educational opportunity, financial stability and other areas.

And over the last year, the initiative has worked to impact children in another way – through sports.

Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families teamed up with the Final Third Foundation and Columbus City Schools to offer two soccer-based programs to a total of approximately 700 students in elementary and middle schools in 2024 and 2025.

In one program, teachers, coaches and mentors used soccer as a way to improve literacy skills. In another, the three partner organizations created an interscholastic soccer league, and in the process help connect children to school-based health services.  

Read more about soccer programming, and one student’s experience with it, here.    

Published April 2025