St. Pete youth sports programs get a boost from Clearwater

Established in 1966 and incorporated six years later, Clearwater For Youth is growing in a southward direction. CFY, as it’s better known, supports 18 Pinellas County  youth athletic programs – and the name has been quietly, unofficially changed to CFY Pinellas.

On July 11, the nonprofit organization announced a record distribution of $106,348. Checks are cut every two months throughout the year; this was the fourth “cycle of giving” for 2024. About 15,000 children are reached annually.

As CFY expands into St. Petersburg, Ferg’s Sports Bar & Grill – where the announcement was made – has signed on as a partner, along with the St. Petersburg Police Department.

“Every dollar donated through our partners and our donors, we are putting that money back into the community to serve our youth for today,” said Brooke Bennett, CFY Development Manager, during the ceremony. An endowment pays the organization’s administrative codts, she added.

St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway, who supported CFY during his 2010-2014 tenure as Clearwater Chief, welcomed the group’s expansion. Paying for sports equipment, he reminded attendees, usually comes after paying rent and buying groceries. “There are a lot of parents out there that have to make up their minds: Do I need to pay for this, or do I need to get my child in that?” Holloway said.

“By getting your child off the streets, and by giving these kids something else to do, it really gives us an opportunity not just as a city but as a county, to grow.”

Hollway said he couldn’t thank CFY enough. “Because this is going to change the way Pinellas County is. And anybody out there that’s thinking about donating to a cause, this is a great cause.”

CFY’s Youth Athletic Grants support access and equipment to nine youth football programs, 11 Little League programs, three softball programs, four arts and culture programs, two basketball programs, two swim programs, four soccer programs, one boxing program (in Lealman), two lacrosse programs and two track and field programs.

According to the CFY website, the organization has provided more than $4 million to youth programs over the last decade.

Kevin Dunbar became CFY’s executive director in 2021. Dunbar, who was Clearwater’s Parks and Recreation Department director from 1999 to 2019, told the Catalyst he believed the organization had “reached the potential of what it could do in Clearwater.”

Dunbar said he told the CFY board of directors, when he was considering taking the job, “I would want to strategically look to make this be about the entire Pinellas County. And the board was very intrigued with the idea.

“I laid out a strategy for how we would expand, just in handling 10 co-sponsor programs in Clearwater, and that culminated, in 2024, our efforts down in St. Petersburg now.”