The Prince George Youth Soccer Association is pleased to see the government help sports organizations facing challenges related to COVID-19.

The province announced an investment of 1.5 million dollars to help with fixed costs.

In addition, Canadian Heritage invested $3.4 million to sports organizations across BC.

Director of Club Operations Terrol Russell told MyPGNow.com while they are still looking through all the details of the program, the assistance is appreciated.

“We haven’t exactly had the number of new registrations and have not been able to produce the activity and programming that we have in previous years. Right now, at this time, any little support will help organizations like ours.”

“With a downturn in the number of registrations and the programs we are able to provide, yes there is a financial hit that comes along with that but luckily for us, we’ve been able to put constraints on our spending.”

Russell added says while they haven’t applied for the program yet, they are one of 54 groups who have submitted a Return to Play model.

“Our organization worked for a number of months to dot every I and cross every T in order to get a full RTP, Return to Play Plan built and submitted. We had to go through quite a rigorous process and our groups started Phase 1 programming last week.”

Russell hopes the PGYSA can enter Phases 2 and 3 of their plan later this summer.