In what will surely provide a big push for the growth of flag football at all levels, the National Football League, GENYOUth and NFL Flag are celebrating the 10^th year of GENYOUth's NFL Flag-In-School program with the opening of national applications for the 2023-2024 school year. With a deadline of May 16, educators and community-based organizations can apply for a free NFL Flag-In-School flag football kit to strengthen and enhance their physical education curriculum and equipment.

Through a renewed commitment of $1.5 million from the NFL Foundation, NFL Flag-In-School continues to offer opportunities for physical activity to students of all genders, abilities and skill levels. Since 2014, a total of 37,000 kits will have been provided to U.S. schools and school-based community organizations through the 2023-2024 school year, engaging an estimated 16.5 million students in 30,000 school communities to become more active before, during, and after school.

Since its inception in 2014, NFL Flag-In-School has fueled interest and engagement in sports while providing a solution for schools that lack accessibility to physical activity due to budget constraints. The program's positive impact on girls has been particularly significant, with schools reporting an increase in female students' participation in physical activity and a growing movement toward girls' flag football as a varsity sport due to NFL Flag-In-School. Girls' enthusiasm for the program is especially important considering research that shows they are at greater risk than boys of falling short of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services youth physical activity guidelines, with girls twice as likely to drop out of sports upon reaching middle school.

Through a partnership between GENYOUth and the Nevada State Department of Education, NFL Flag-In-School will continue to expand as part of the State of Nevada's physical education course. Introduced in public high schools in the 2022-23 school year, NFL Flag-In-School kits will expand to middle and elementary schools in 2023-24, enabling every Nevada public school to have access to NFL FLAG-In-School leading into the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas.  

"Fewer than one in four school-aged youth are getting the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity and schools are crucial partners in supporting the health and well-being of youth," says Ann Marie Krautheim, CEO of GENYOUth. "U.S. schools operate on a median annual school physical education budget of just $764. The need for NFL Flag-In-School and the critical opportunities it provides for students to be physically active has never been greater. We are proud of the positive impact that NFL FLAG-In-School has had on school communities in providing innovative tools and resources that inspire a lifelong love of physical activity and sport among students."

"NFL Flag-In-School opens the door of accessibility to all students regardless of gender, age, class, disability and ethnicity to benefit from the many transferable values that the game of football offers," said Troy Vincent, Sr., NFL executive VP-football Operations. "The NFL, GENYOUth, and NFL Flag partnership aims to effectively resource under-resourced schools in meeting physical activity needs with America's most popular and fastest emerging team sport. Football for all!"