Final preparations took place last night at the Rotary Soccer fields for today’s season start

Prince George, BC –  By day’s end, between six- and seven-thousand people will have made way their through the gates at the city’s Rotary soccer fields to mark the start of the 2012 youth soccer season.

PGYSA’s new Executive Director, Len McNamara, says there are approximately 2500 kids playing soccer, ranging in age from three- to 18-years-old; more than 200 teams; and between 400- and 500 coaches, assistant coaches and managers.  (PGYSA is still looking for coaches – particularly for the 9-12-year-old range)

"I did some of the phonecalling myself with the kids and the parents – notifying them of the times they play," he says.  "You can tell they’re excited.  It was a long winter and people are ready to get out there and recreate, play soccer, and that’s good."

McNamara is excited about some new initiatives getting underway:  Soccer Saturdays, Club 11 and a pledge program.  The idea behind Soccer Saturdays is two-fold: to provide more for members – players and parents – while they’re at the fields on game day; and to encourage city residents who may not have any connection to soccer to come and take in some of what’s going on at the fields.

As part of that, different local service organizations will be on-site every week, and other local sports organizations with a lower profile than soccer, hockey and football, will be on-hand to ‘get the word’ out.  McNamara says PGYSA eventually wants to construct a 1.5K walking track around the perimeter of the fields.

"Because there’s so much activity going on, we want to add to it and make it grow," he says.  "So that we can become a focal point for the city, so that if there’s a major issue or major (fundraising) drive, our soccer fields become sort of a focal point where that information can be distributed."

Club 11 and the pledge program are a joint effort to ‘give back’ to the community.  The last week of May and the first week of June, players will be collecting pledges that will be tallied based on the number of goals scored by UNBC’s Men’s and Women’s soccer teams.  McNamara says if each child raises $1 and the teams combine for 20 goals, PGYSA will raise $50-thousand dollars.  The goal is to double that and raise $100-thousand to split between the soccer association and community youth organizations.  People who join Club 11 will meet once per year to decide how the money will be distributed throughout the community.

"I’m pretty excited about these new programs that give a little bit of a different perspective of the association within the public’s eye," says the executive director.  "I really believe that as an organization, we’re going to make greater contributions back to the community."