MILAN (ITALPRESS) – The joint efforts of Snaitech Foundation, Milan Foundation and Costruiamo il Futuro Foundation have resulted in the creation of a new sports space inside the Oratory of Our Lady of the Poor in Baggio, a western suburb of Milan, which has included the construction of a seven-a-side soccer field made of synthetic material that will be equipped with an upgraded fencing system to protect it and make it safer and more accessible.
“In Play for the Future” is the name of the initiative presented last June at a public meeting held right next to the old playing field. In less than 150 days, and with a summer season in between, it has thus gone from the announcement, to the demolition of the existing structure and the construction of the new one, which will make even more hospitable, and able to aggregate, a meeting and recreation point fundamental to the life of this area.
Confirming the great expectation in the neighborhood, there were indeed a large number of people who attended the inauguration, which was held right on the turf of the new play space, in the presence of local institutions, represented by Martina Riva, Councillor for Sports, Tourism and Youth Policies of the City of Milan, and Silvia Fossati, President of City Hall 7. Introduced by Germano Lanzoni, Fabio Schiavolin, Snaitech CEO and Snaitech Foundation Vice President; Paolo Scaroni, AC Milan and Milan Foundation President; Franco Baresi, AC Milan Honorary Vice President and Milan Foundation Ambassador; and Maurizio Lupi, Costruiamo il Futuro Foundation President, “took the field” to talk about the origin and value of this initiative. Also starring was Rossoneri First Team player Karen Appiah. Along with them, doing the “honors” was Don Davide Baschirotto, pastor of Our Lady of the Poor, a church that caters to a catchment area of nearly 10,000 people.
The new field will be available to neighborhood kids and entities such as the St. Dominic Savio Sports Association, which involves dozens of young people each year with its soccer school.
“It was a great team effort that allowed us to give back to the children and youth of Baggio a space where they can grow, have fun and be together. We are really proud to have contributed to the realization of this project together with two exceptional partners such as the Building the Future Foundation and the Milan Foundation,” Schiavolin stressed. “For us, sport is a powerful tool for inclusion and social recognition, and this project perfectly represents the commitment that as the Snaitech Foundation we carry out every day by supporting those realities that operate in the area to improve the daily life of its community.
“In more than 20 years, our foundation has used sport and its values as a tool for social change, capable of generating concrete impact through the investment of more than 12 million euros and the implementation of more than 250 projects around the world, starting from Milan, where the Rossoneri family has its roots,” Scaroni said. A perfect example of this is the project we are inaugurating today, made possible only thanks to the virtuous collaboration with Fondazione Snaitech and Fondazione Costruiamo il Futuro, which I thank: together, we have redeveloped and made available to the local community a new place where thousands of young people can get together and express their talents.”
“Thinking about what is good is not enough, it is also necessary to know how to realize it,” Lupi pointed out. “If today the young people of the Milanese neighborhood of Baggio can count on a new area dedicated to sports, it is because three different realities, such as Milan Foundation, Snaitech Foundation and Costruiamo il Futuro Foundation, shared an idea and then worked for it to take shape and substance. The best results, and it is soccer itself that reminds us of this, are only achieved through teamwork. And it is undoubtedly even more gratifying when you manage to do something good in the territories that rise on the fringes of big cities and that often receive less consideration: we will continue to work on projects of beauty and inclusiveness, such as “In Gioco per il futuro,” also to help bring the suburbs more and more to the center of attention.”
– Snaitech press office photo –
(ITALPRESS).
