This Oakland Library Loans Sports Equipment
During the summer months, many kids can be found playing sports like basketball, soccer, and tennis in local parks. But the last place that many of them want to be is in a library. Unless it is a sports equipment lending library.
In July 2026, Oakland Parks, Recreation & Youth Development (OPRYD) opened a park play lending library located at the Larry E. Reid Sports Center, according to a press release from the California city. The lending library was designed to expand access to sports equipment for youth and families in the city.
The library offers free access to a variety of sports and recreational equipment as a way of removing the financial barriers that prevent participation in sports for underprivileged youth. It is part of OPRYD’s commitment to create opportunities for all residents to engage in physical activity and develop healthy habits.
How did the Program Get Started?
The idea was the brainchild of Maribel Lopez, the OPRYD recreation supervisor, reported SFGATE, after she saw that children and parents would go to the sports center and ask to borrow equipment. She used the last remaining funds in her annual budget to bring her idea to life.
The library is stocked with footballs, soccer balls, volleyballs, tennis equipment, yoga mats, and even jump ropes. After community input, card games and board games were added.
“We’re aware that sports can lead to social mobility,” Lopez told SFGATE. “When kids are familiar with golf, tennis, soccer, and other, you know, games or sports that are more socially mobile, then they have access to different communities, different friend groups, different neighborhoods, and we want to be a vehicle for that. We want kids to be able to speak each other’s language and connect through sports.”
This is especially important because the neighborhoods around the sports center lack city resources and services including green spaces and equipment for kids to use. That’s why Lopez decided it would be a great spot to open the lending library.
“I think it could give kids an opportunity to come out to the park and play in a safe environment, knowing that there is equipment here to use if their parents don’t have the monetary needs to provide the kids with soccer balls, footballs,” Riles Nganga, an OPRYD recreation leader, said. “I know growing up, I didn’t have access to any of this stuff, so I think us being able to offer that to the community is a great thing.”
Is it working?
For families that want to see their kids active and engaged in something positive, the sports center is keeping them off the streets.
“Parents are trying to keep food on the table but also navigate being able to have their kids go to things and participate in things, and sometimes, it can be difficult,” Maria Garcia, a lifelong Oakland resident who works the front desk of the sports center said. “And I think having resources like this kind of opens up that door for them to be able to do that.”
The Aspen Institute released a report in 2022 about youth sports in Oakland and found that only 14 percent of the kids in the city get the recommended 60 minutes of play a day. Coupled with an increase of 46 percent in the cost of youth sports, it highlighted that something had to change.
If this lending library does well, the goal is to put one in each Oakland district and to develop partnerships with local youth sports teams.
“The library is just at the beginning stages right now,” Nganga said. “Everything isn’t even here yet, so we still want to get spike ball out here…We’re still ordering cornholes. Anything that can get people outside, outdoors, moving and not being in the house sedentary.”
