Jaxon Snyder Foundation gets $1,020 in youth philanthropy grants

A $1,020 grant will not buy a season, but in Union County it can mean the difference between a child stepping onto the field or staying home. For Play It Forward-The Jaxon Snyder Foundation, the Lewisburg-area nonprofit built to help kids get the gear they need, that money is aimed squarely at the cost barrier that keeps some families out of sports.

Stacie Snyder launched the foundation after Jaxon Snyder died unexpectedly in August 2024 at age 13. The organization honors his memory by collecting and redistributing sports equipment so every child has the chance to play, grow and thrive, and its mission is rooted in a simple reality: shoes, pads, bats, sticks, uniforms and league fees add up fast.

The grant came through the Community Giving Foundation’s Youth in Philanthropy program, where high school students across the Central Susquehanna region help decide where small community grants go. The program has operated since 2004, and the foundation says it has returned more than $800,000 to the region through student-led grantmaking. During the 2025-2026 school year, 20 school districts and groups took part, and students awarded 125 grants totaling $100,400 on April 15, 2026.

That local decision-making has real weight for families trying to keep up with youth sports expenses. The Aspen Institute’s Project Play found that the average U.S. sports family spent $1,016 on a child’s primary sport in 2024, up 46% since 2019. RAND has also found that lower-income families are less likely to have children in sports, in part because of financial costs and family time commitments.

For Lewisburg, the foundation’s work is personal. Jaxon Snyder was born April 14, 2011, and died Aug. 20, 2024, at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville after a brief illness. He was an eighth-grade student at Lewisburg Area Middle School, and a bench honoring him was dedicated in Lewisburg in April 2026.

The grant gives the foundation more room to do what it was created to do in Union County: turn donated equipment and modest funding into access, so a child with talent and drive does not sit out because the price of playing is too high.