Community centers and programs are crucial for young people to build meaningful relationships with others as they develop into responsible and active citizens. But, this opportunity is not available to everyone in their adolescence. Access to resources for involvement, such as sports teams and leadership events, is often limited for low-income families. 

To battle this inequality, the Madison Parks Foundation has created the Kids Need Opportunities at Warner program, through which low-income youth can explore various hobbies and learn to coordinate efforts with other young people. Recently, the program received a $94,000 dollar grant to expand its services. Whether it’s a friendly game of basketball or a career training event, such opportunities provide students with the skills necessary to succeed in the real world.

Because access to these invaluable resources is skewed to middle and upper-class students, young people from wealthy backgrounds tend to have greater opportunities to succeed in the workplace and to participate in the community as active, informed citizens, according to the OECD. Programs like KNOW are crucial to bridging the gaps in social participation between young people from varying socioeconomic backgrounds. 

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But, the benefits of young people’s community involvement echo far beyond their individual lives. Professor at Harvard University’s Malkin School of Public Policy, Robert Putnam emphasizes the importance of the “social capital” that team activities develop. These tight-knit community networks result in the sense of cooperation and belonging that young people might otherwise seek through more dangerous alternatives, such as gang participation. 

Community cohesion and teamwork are cultivated at a young age through after-school sports and extracurriculars. While school is assuredly responsible for a portion of this engagement, local community centers are also critical. In a study conducted in Glenview, a low-resource urban neighborhood, researchers recorded the social improvements after a summer recreational facility was implemented for the town’s young people.

A Glenview pastor involved in the implementation claimed the program had an “immediate impact,” as he saw a steady decrease in the “negative crowd hanging out” which had previously been more common. Moreover, the local police department reported decreased incidents of crime and drug trafficking. The town’s young people instead turned to the new community centers that offered various enrichment opportunities such as music, dance and academic tutoring outside the classroom.

These programs are incredibly important in turning adolescents into well-rounded individuals. Furthermore, local centers also serve as spaces for young people to engage in the physical activity necessary for their health, according to a study conducted at the Institute for Behavioral and Community Health. 

The role recreational centers play in youth development cannot be underscored enough. But, not every child has access to these facilities and community-building opportunities. Studies like IBACH report that the use of community facilities is concentrated primarily in higher-income communities.

Interestingly, there was no significant difference between the number of physical recreational centers in high and low-income neighborhoods respectively. But, poverty-stricken communities often see more unfavorable conditions and potentially unwelcome activities such as graffiti, which can lead to lower levels of facility use.

In fact, the study found that the use of neighborhood recreational facilities increased by a factor of at least 1.23 with every $10,000 increase in neighborhood income. Hence, the community centers that have the most use are almost wholly located in wealthier neighborhoods that tend to be inaccessible to low-income families.

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Unfortunately, a similar trend can be seen in Madison’s KNOW program. The Warner Park Community Recreation Center, which was designated by the Madison Parks Foundation as its newest location, is not known for its accessibility. While the decision was designed to serve low-resource families in the northeastern neighborhoods of Madison by providing young people with local involvement opportunities, finding transportation to the facility is troublesome for many of the students it aims to reach.

The Warner Park Facility manager Zach Watson explained that many students travel a minimum of one hour on Metro Transit buses to access the facility, which inevitably limits their ability to participate in some of the available activities, such as a referee training program that requires timely arrival. 

Low-income youth often live in public housing sites like those offered by the Community Development Authority in the city of Madison. The CDA’s eastern public housing sites include the Truax Park Apartments which are 30 minutes to an hour away from the Warner Park Community Recreation Center by bus. Additionally, young people in the CDA’s west site, which includes the Romnes Apartments and the Triangle Site, travel a minimum of one hour by bus to reach the Warner Park center.

The Men of Dane County’s $94,000 donation made earlier this fall aims to rectify these shortcomings. The donation specifically funds vans to transport students to Warner Park in hopes of increasing participation in the park’s leadership and sports events.

It is unclear whether funding students’ travel to distant locations for after-school activities is a viable solution. Local centers within middle to upper-class towns allow adolescents from the same area to become cohesive as a community. When poor youth are forced to travel for long periods of time from different regions to access community facilities, they lose the opportunity to build relationships with individuals from their own neighborhoods. In other words, residents of the lower-income community do not receive the chance to accumulate the “social capital” that Putnam deems vital to development. 

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Pride in, and identification with, one’s community are crucial to uplifting underserved young people and their entire neighborhoods. While creating programs like KNOW may be important initial steps to provide young people with development opportunities, more permanent solutions may be renovating low-income community centers to increase usage.

The problem is not necessarily the difference in the number of facilities available across poorer and wealthier neighborhoods. The poor quality and inadequate infrastructure in low-income centers is causing this disparity in which communities use these facilities. As such, renovating these areas is vital to decrease reliance on funds that send students further away from their local neighborhoods to participate in proper extracurricular activities. This money must be directly invested into these communities, rather than increasing low-income dependence on wealthy neighborhoods.

Aanika Parikh ([email protected]) is a freshman studying molecular and cell biology.