Nick Weiss began playing wheelchair basketball at age 10, and this year marks his 22nd season playing the sport.
“I have cerebral palsy [and] it took a lot of convincing to participate in wheelchair basketball at first,” says Weiss, who works as the outreach coordinator for local nonprofit Seattle Adaptive Sports. “But once I found out there were collegiate opportunities, I sought those out and was able to get a scholarship to the University of Illinois.”
That experience, Weiss says, gave him a fundamental understanding of what sports can do for people with disabilities. “Higher education is essential for those with disabilities, because we typically have to use our brainpower to get jobs and rely on our education to overcome any sort of barriers,” he says.
To level the playing field for all ages and abilities, sports-aligned nonprofits in the Seattle area are rallying around cause-based missions that benefit local residents. These agencies strive to create recreational access with shared missions of fostering wellness and inciting a competitive spirit — particularly in underserved communities, where a lack of venues, equipment and even youth playtime is an ongoing challenge.
According to the Census Bureau, Washington is among the wealthiest states in the U.S., with data showing a median household income of more than $90,000. Despite this bounty, inequality persists as underserved communities struggle for access to services.
Enter RAVE Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders FC. RAVE’s mission is to “build small fields for free play across the state of Washington,” according to Ashley Fosberg, the organization’s vice president of philanthropy and executive director. “Those fields are placed largely in underserved communities that cannot access the sport of soccer because they’re not able to afford to join the local rec team, or they’re not able to buy equipment.”
Creating access to soccer
In 2017, when the organization began developing the Yesler Terrace Park playfield, Fosberg met a local youth named Haron while she planned with community stakeholders.
Haron would often play soccer on sidewalks, in the street and in the hallways of his apartment building with his father. The two were thrilled when they learned of RAVE Foundation’s playfield development plans, Fosberg says.
“Haron would yell, ‘Hey, RAVE lady! When are we getting our pitch?’” she says. “We ended up interviewing [him] after the field opened, and he truly believes that it was built for him. He feels so much ownership. If you have a place to play near your home, you can belong somewhere. You feel like you have a place to grow.”
While playtime should be accessible for all children, Fosberg says, many Seattle-area families struggle to find the time, space or funds for recreation due to myriad factors, including income inequalities, housing limitations and a skyrocketing cost of living. As such, these types of community fields provide more than simply a place to play: “They provide an anchor, a sort of home base, and a place to belong.”
RAVE Foundation hopes to complete 26 fields prior to the World Cup’s arrival in Washington in 2026.
“This moment for Seattle, and for Washington, gives us a platform to be able to share the need and invite funders, fans and soccer lovers to join us in the commitment to just bring more play,” says Fosberg. “It’s a very significant statewide event that represents the world coming to our corner. And we do believe that play is not a privilege. It should be enjoyed by everyone, no matter their race, income status, location, language, gender identity. There should be no barriers to play.”
Filling a gap in schools
In 2008, when Sports in Schools founder and soccer coach Will Niccolls arrived at a South Seattle playfield to referee a youth soccer game, he noticed that many of the players had no socks.
“Most ‘by the books’ refs will say, ‘No socks, no game,’” Niccolls recalls. “It occurred to me that these kids deserved to play as much as the more affluent kids across the field. I had 15 minutes until game time, and there was a Target nearby, so I jumped in my car and came back with socks.”
For Niccolls, sockless soccer players highlighted the grave financial disparities among schools and communities, and he set out to create a solution.
That effort continues today. In his role as executive director of Sports in Schools, Glenn McCray seeks out barriers to play within schools and works to break them down.
When Washington schools began slashing budgets in 2023 to address financial shortfalls, Sports in Schools redoubled its efforts to provide a counterpoint to the lack of state funding. McCray says the nonprofit supports schools and communities to foster equitable access to play, quality equipment and uniforms, with the goal of “encouraging healthy lifestyles that will go beyond the classroom, field, court, mat or track.”
Sports in Schools now supports low-income, under-resourced middle school and high school athletic programs in King and Pierce counties with much more than socks. The organization offers equipment, apparel and financial assistance for student athletes, tennis programs, events promoting leadership among girls and other scholarship programs.
McCray says his organization is also exploring ways to support elementary programs.
“The way that sports are cultivated [in elementary schools] tends to be within physical education and recess, so we’re exploring how to support local PE classes in schools, build leadership and cultivate interests in sports,” he says. “We can offer a continuum of support between kindergarten through 12th grade as an organization.”
To date, Sports in Schools has supported over 20,000 student athletes from more than 60 schools in 18 different sport modalities, has provided $12,000 in college scholarships and has awarded $20,000 worth of grocery gift cards to 400 students.
Making sports available to all
For athletes with physical limitations, access to recreational programs has its own unique set of challenges.
At Seattle Adaptive Sports, the focus is on providing solutions by supporting competitive programs in wheelchair basketball, sled hockey, power soccer and goalball for youth and adults with permanent physical disabilities. Weiss, the outreach coordinator, says participants may have injuries resulting from amputation, transverse myelitis, intellectual development disabilities, cerebral palsy, joint damage, scoliosis, spina bifida, spinal cord injury, brain injury or other congenital and acquired conditions impacting mobility.
Among its services, Seattle Adaptive Sports provides scholarships, clinics, competitive paralympic league sports and recreational team sports.
For those with disabilities, as well as those without, team sports are an integral part of personal growth and development, Weiss says. That growth can be inspiring.
Brennan, a Sports in Schools participant, is “putting in the work and is empowered to get to the next level of competition,” Weiss says. Brennan suffers from both cerebral palsy and hemiplegia, or paralysis of one side of the body.
“I just love seeing him grow with every practice, knowing that he’s on this path toward success, and that this will open doors for him at the collegiate level and at the professional level,” Weiss says. “He is going to continue to defy every expectation that you would think might be a barrier for him. It’s just so inspiring.”
For those whose recreational interests lean more toward the nautical, the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent offers a range of programs and displays that both inspire and entertain. The nation’s only public museum dedicated solely to unlimited hydroplane racing, the nonprofit reaches beyond pure recreation to benefit children and wounded veterans, as well.
The Warriors on the Water program promotes hydroplane racing for veteran amputees using modified racing vessels. The program was created by hydroplane racing legend Chip Hanauer and Puget Sound Veterans Affairs doctor Jeffrey Heckman of the Regional Amputation Center.
Prosthetics engineer Wayne Biggs, an amputee and Warriors on the Water participant himself, wants to help prosthetic patients get involved in the program.
“For the amputees that I treat, I’m always looking for things for them to get involved with,” Biggs says on the museum’s website. “After they lose a limb, they’re often trying to figure out what’s next. I want to help them do that.”
The museum also employs nautical racing to inspire local youth to pursue STEM education. The Victory Education program teaches children, including those from marginalized groups, to build miniature nautical racecraft while promoting critical thinking and engineering skills.