Name: Ivy Van Blerkom

Social Justice Group: 2022-2023, Access, Equity and Inequity in Youth Sports

Date of Fieldwork: January 24, 2023

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Jonathan Gamberg, Associate director of sports at the City Parks Foundation

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

On Tuesday, January 24th, 2023, my group interviewed Jonathan Gamberg about all that he has done with the City Parks Foundation. Jonathan works in all five boroughs at various parks throughout the city. He works closely with the two other full-time workers in his division at the City Parks Foundation.

During the interview, we learned about how the City Parks Foundation offers many different free sports programs in parks around New York City. The City Parks Foundation has there own golf setup for kids only; Jonathan told us there were very few of them around the country. Jonathan gave us a lot of information throughout the interview and answered all of our questions very well. The City Parks Foundation offers free sports programs throughout different parks in New York City. These programs are for children ages 6-18. He told us about how he grew up in New York City in these sports programs. Jonathan had originally wanted to work for a professional sports league or team, but when he was living in New York during school one year, he saw the position at the City Parks Foundation become available and he has been working there ever since. The majority of the people that work for the City Parks Foundation are coaches and do not work full-time hours for them.