THE TRACKSMITH FOUNDATION
Our Programs
Coaching Education Grants
Grants for high school coaches to take the USATF coaching education courses. The program will prioritize supporting Title 1 high schools.
Shoe Donation Program
An initiative where the Tracksmith Foundation sources unused shoes and spikes from colleges looking to offload their inventories and provides them to high school students and school districts.
Track Equipment Grants
Program providing equipment grants, in partnership with Gill Athletics, to select low-income high school and youth programs.
Physical Track Infrastructure Support
Addressing the physical infrastructure needs to select low-income high schools
Coaching Education Grants
About
Through a partnership with USATF, we are excited to offer grants for select high school coaches to take USATF’s coaching education courses. This program is intended to support Title 1 high schools, which are schools that serve under-resourced communities.
From the State of Youth Track report from 2022, we learned that there are significant coaching education needs for youth coaches around all the events and in particular around the field events. It was quite common for us to learn of a distance coach who did not have confidence in their knowledge of the sprints and vice versa.
The goal of these Coaching Education Grants is to help address these knowledge gaps so that schools and programs across the country can provide a high quality experience across all of our sport’s disciplines.
Offering support up to Level 2, we aim to enhance the coaching know-how of high school coaches around the country.
Serving
This program is only for track and field programs serving low-income communities. This program is primarily for high school programs. We may consider a small number of middle school and youth club track programs as space allows.
High School Coaches. Title 1 if public school. If charter or other, please explain why your school should qualify
Middle School and Club Coaches – consideration will be on a discretionary bias.
Shoe Donation Program
About
An initiative where the Tracksmith Foundation provides high schools and school districts serving under-resourced communities with unused shoes and spikes from colleges and other partners looking to offload their inventories.
The program began modestly in 2022, focusing on schools in Philadelphia and South Jersey. In 2023, the program was expanded, staging in-person distribution events in Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and Chicago where we were able to engage the athletes in discussion before providing them with high-quality performance footwear. In 2024 and 2025, we began shipping donations directly to schools and school districts in need, greatly expanding our reach. We aim to continue to expand our reach in 2026 and beyond.
To date, the program has distributed nearly 13,000 pairs of shoes.
Serving
This program is intended for schools, youth club track programs, and school districts that serve low-income communities.
Title 1 schools will be our priority but other schools/ youth club track programs are welcomed to apply.
Please contact us at foundation@tracksmith.com for more information.
Track Equipment Grants
About
Program providing equipment grants, in partnership with Gill Athletics, to select low-income high school and youth club track programs.
The program was created to service one of the needs identified in our 2022 State of Youth Track report – that many school track programs needed high-quality track and field equipment, especially for the field events.
Through this program, the Foundation will be able to provide an essential resource needed for many track and field programs and communities.
Serving
This program is intended for schools, youth club track programs, and school districts that serve low-income communities.
Title 1 schools will be our priority but other schools/ youth club track programs are welcome to apply.
Physical Track Infrastructure Support
About
Program intended to support the physical infrastructure needs to select low-income high schools. In our 2022 State of Youth Track report, physical track infrastructure was another identified area of need.
With this program, we aim to address these needs ranging from small improvements such as rollout long jump mats to larger scale improvements such as portable lights. And in the future, we aim to provide track resurfacings and other large scale improvements.
At this juncture, this program will not have an open application process as we will be focusing on small scale improvements for schools whom we have already supported via our other programs.
In the future our plan is to provide larger scale improvements and to allow schools to directly apply for this program as well.
Serving
This program is intended for schools, youth club track programs, and school districts that serve low-income communities.
The Tracksmith Foundation
The goal of the Tracksmith Foundation is simple yet ambitious: to give more people the opportunity to participate in track and field.
We believe the lessons learned from being part of a track and field team are the lessons that help create a more inclusive society. Track and field is perhaps the most diverse sport in the world. A typical meet has 40 events – including sprints, jumps, throws and distance races – and it encourages athletes of different abilities, backgrounds, religions, races, gender and socioeconomic status to build meaningful relationships in pursuit of a common goal. The combination of representation and camaraderie instills a commitment to acceptance, openness and empathy.