Foot-powered progress: How the PD's you soccer program is building community in Waite Park

By Chief Dave Bentrud, Waite Park Police Department

The City of Waite Park’s housing is about 60% rental with most of it located within a 2 mile radius of Discovery Elementary School on the south side of town. It is estimated that about 700 children in the 10-17 age group reside in the apartment complexes in this area. Because Waite Park has some of the more affordable rental housing within the St. Cloud Metropolitan area we have a large population of refugees from East Africa primarily from Somali. Unfortunately the rental properties in this area are not surrounded by parks and miles of lush grass, but busy roads and commercial properties. This has created some challenges for residential and commercial neighbors. The police department has received complaints about children walking through yards disturbing the property or finding things to play with on commercial properties and in parking lots.

Fortunately, there is an elementary school in this area that has a large playground and plenty of green space. However, this school is across 4 lanes of busy traffic lanes without any stop lights. To complicate the situation the school grounds are currently under construction and will be for about a year.

A Waite Park resident who resides in this area met with the Chief of Police asking him if there was anything we could do to provide the kids with something to occupy their time. The resident mentioned that idle hands tend to cause problems and he wanted to find a way to deter the kids from trouble. The Waite Park Police Department previously sponsored a PAL (Police Activities League) program, but had to end the program in 2008 due to budgets and staffing shortages. While are still not in a position to re-start the PAL program we discussed the feasibly of starting a youth soccer league for the summer of 2017. Soccer is a becoming a very popular sport among our area youth. We started to research what soccer programs were being offered in the area. We found that the current programs were expensive, only offered in the evening and the field was 5 miles away. In order to solve this problem, the Waite Park Police Department began meeting with multiple agencies to find out how we could coordinate and bring a free day time youth soccer program to all youth within our community.

We began by meeting with staff from Stearns County Public Health and also discussing the idea of an internship with some professors from St. John’s University in nearby Collegeville. The interest was very strong and soon we were meeting with representatives from the College of St. Benedict’s, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud School District and Community Education, and the Central Minnesota Youth Soccer Program (CMYSA). Over the last few months we have been working together figuring out the best way to offer a soccer program. The biggest hurdle was finding a location that had enough green space and was relatively easy for the kids to access without having to find transportation. We finally found a ball park that will be able to accommodate all of our needs. It is further away from the targeted neighborhood than what we would like, but we will be checking into some transportation options in case they are needed.

The soccer program will be offered for kid’s ages 10-17, two days a week, from 9 am – 12 pm and it will run for 8 weeks. During this time there will be two 90 min sessions, one for younger kids and one for the older kids. Each session will include 45 mins to work on skills and 45 mins of game play. The game play will not be formal so we will be able to accommodate all skill levels.

We are working with the local colleges to find students to assist the CMYSA with coaching. We are also working on developing two internship programs. One of our interns will help establish the program including practice times, location, marketing, snacks, and beverages. Another internship will work on creating the skills and coaching program and will work directly with the kids during the program. We are also reaching out to area businesses to help provide the snacks and beverages we will offer during the program. In time, if the program catches on and eventually develops into something more formal, we will work with area sporting goods stores to provide jerseys and pads for the kids.

During the program, law enforcement will be present when possible. We will use our school resource officer and community service officer as the two main contacts. Street officers will also attend and will play along, hand out snacks and interact with the kids as much as possible. We will use this time to create relationships with the youth and create trust, especially among the refugee population. We are hoping that by making some connections with the kids that it will make for a natural bridge to build trusting relationships with many our local parents.

Our soccer program will be open to all kids. Our hope is to offer a safe and free program for kids who are looking for something to do in the summer when their parents are at work or busy with younger siblings. We hope this program will help kids to feel like a bigger part of the community, meet new kids, have positive interactions with law enforcement and help reduce juvenile crime. We also hope the kids will continue to use this ball park as a gathering place to meet and play soccer or other games any day of the week. As a coincidence, the ball park is right across the street from the police department so the kids will have many chances to see the officers they have met on the field.