Sports access lockers begin popping up across Golden Horseshoe

Several cities in the greater Hamilton area are showing that you don’t need to own gear to get into sports.

New equipment lockers are popping up in Burlington, Hamilton and Welland, giving people free access to soccer balls, footballs, and more.

A new approach to getting people active is ready to go in Burlington.

“Right now we have 20 different parks in Burlington that have these sport lockers, different equipment in each of them,” said Emilie Cote, the recreation, community and culture director for the City of Burlington. “So anything from soccer balls, basketballs, footballs, Frisbees.”

The company Equip Sport and Canadian Tire Jumpstart have helped launch a new pilot project connecting people with free access to sporting goods.

READ MORE: Hamilton port lands welcome new forest, playground on Friday

“And we hear all the time of people going to check out a new park and not realizing there’s a soccer field or there’s a basketball, forgetting their equipment,” said Cote.

Through an app, people can sign out a ball on the spot.

Burlington isn’t the only city in our area that’s adopting this pilot program, with the goal of making it easier for kids to access outdoor activities.

“We have one of these boxes in every single one of our Wards in Hamilton,” said Hamilton Sport Services Manager Sarah Linfoot-Fusina.

Hamilton hopes to make these lockers permanent, using information collected from the Equip Sports app.

“We’re going to take a look at the data after this season to see how well utilized the program was and make some decisions about expanding the program, but our hope is that they have been well utilized,” said Linfoot-Fusina.

The City of Welland is following suit.

WATCH MORE: Summer experiences at Conservation Halton parks

“We only launched it a couple of days ago and I’ve already had a few people reach out and say, ‘how do I get one of these in my park?’,” said Jennifer McPetrie, the community services director for the City of Welland.

Experts say free access to sports equipment makes a big difference for kids in particular.

“This is one way we can sort of engender a sense of curiosity and low stakes play in young kids that hopefully pushes them towards registration — maybe not, but also gives them access to sport that they can hang on to throughout life,” said Taylor McKee, a professor of sport management at Brock University.

But access could still face an issue, as a smartphone is needed to unlock the equipment, potentially leaving kids who don’t have one out.

As for worries over stolen equipment, city staff say missing material will be replaced by Equip Sport, but they hope people will use the service responsibly.

“I mean, the equipment is intended to be used for everybody, so we’re really hopeful that people will follow suit with those guidelines and want everybody to use it,” said Cote.

WATCH MORE: Hamilton to begin gathering data to help plan creation of more dog parks