Nashua PAL is currently engaged in a telephone campaign and an event that will feature Nashua Police vs. Boston Bruins Legends. All contributions are welcome!

The Nashua Police Athletic League has a mission to foster positive relationships between youth and police. PAL is fortunate to have a number of programs that assist this mission and help youth in and around the City of Nashua. PAL offers a large variety of sports, education, recreational, and enrichment programs to all of Nashua's youngsters.






PAL relies on the generosity of extraordinary citizens and corporations to provide the resources to keep our youth active, productive and safe. The Nashua Community Center, located in the heart of Nashua (52 Ash Street) is supervised by Nashua Police Officers, Nashua PAL staff and a community of volunteers. All activities are directed at helping positive development of young people. the help of community volunteers these officers and staff provide youngsters with proper guidance, life skills, and opportunities that will give them a better chance at a successful life.

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Whether it is the PAL Community Center, Football, Cross Country, Cheerleading, or Boxing, we invite you to continue to learn about our organization by browsing our web site. To see how you can personally contribute to the success of all of our children, volunteer at our Community Center or one of our activities call 603-594-3549 or 603-594-3733 or email youthsafehaven@nashuapal.com.

Nashua youth football invests in helmets, mouthguards to mitigate concussions

Nashua Telegraph Oct 4 By: Cameron Kittle

Safety first has never felt so good.

Youth football players in Nashua’s Police Athletic League each received a new cushioned helmet this year to expand the organization’s effort to mitigate concussions.

The Xenith X2 helmets, made in Lowell, Mass., are engineered specifically to prevent against head injuries.

“The consensus from experts is that safe equipment is the number one way to prevent concussions,” said Brendan Keegan, president of the organization. “We made the significant investment to put safety first.”

Nashua isn’t alone. The Amherst Patriots youth football organization also made efforts to combat concussions this summer and announced a partnership with local doctor Ted Davis and the ImPACT program, which will help to catch dangerous head injuries early and protect young athletes in the program.

The Police Athletic League spent $19,800, about a third of its annual budget, on 130 helmets for its tackle-football players, Keegan said. It was a huge cost, but coaches and parents believe the payoff is worth it.

“I feel more comfortable that my kids are being protected with the latest technology,” said Tim Krulikowski, a Nashua parent with a son in the league. “I can’t say enough good things. It’s all about the kids.”

The league’s helmets were old last year – bought in the program’s first year, 2004, and near the end of their 10-year lifespan – and that worried several coaches.

Bryce Ouellette, who coaches fourth- and fifth-grade players, said the new helmets are a huge step forward.

“We’re lucky nothing serious happened (with the old helmets),” he said. “It almost seemed like they were putting bricks on their heads and running into each other.”

Hits to the side of the head are actually more dangerous than head-on collisions, Keegan said, which led the league to also develop a partnership with Shock Doctor mouthguards, which help to stop jaw movement during a hard hit.

The Police Athletic League founded the Nashua PAL Force football and spirit programs in 2004 and they have been growing ever since. Keegan said numbers are up by about 50 players and cheerleaders in the past two years, thanks to successful outreach and parents coming around to the positive steps taken by the organization.

“It’s a combination of a lot of hard work,” said Bill Grady, the league’s public relations director. “We make an effort to participate in the community and reach out to families.”

The league has taken additional precautions to prevent concussions, including a “When in doubt, sit him out” rule with no exceptions.

“If we’re unsure at all, we always err with the axiom,” Keegan said.

Grady also pointed to the education and awareness that go along with the new helmets. Parents need to know the symptoms of concussions and how they can be treated at home. Coaches need to know what drills to toss out and how to avoid awkward, dizzying hits.

“It’s all about dispersing the blow,” Grady said.

Every coach in the league and many parents also took an online course this summer to learn about concussions. A few others have attended sessions at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center for even more information.

“About 35 years ago, I practiced on this field as a Nashua Steer; we used to call concussions ‘burners’ and we’d go back out there,” Keegan said. “Now, you’re taught to hit differently. The drills for the players are all different.”

Fifth-grader Nate Nugent, 11, said it was exciting to have new helmets, and he’s already felt the improved effects after being hit.

“It’s got much, much better cushioning; my head doesn’t hurt as much after games,” said Nugent, a student at Broad Street School.

With the Xenith X2s, coaches can also be more involved in testing how a helmet fits.

Traditional football helmets are pumped with air, Keegan said, and a coach can’t always keep track of the amount of air pressure in a particular kid’s helmet during a game. But the Xenith X2s are tightened with side straps that adjust the pressure on their own.

“It’s a custom fit every time it goes on,” Keegan said.

Certified technicians from Xenith made the trip north to fit all 130 kids into helmets before league play started, Keegan said. That had a pronounced effect on parents and coaches, who were pleased to see such attention paid to the kids’ safety.

“Parents see the way we take care of their kids; they can tell we put in the effort,” Keegan said. “When you put in something good, it usually comes back around.”

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Nashua PAL holds Youth Cheer Camp

Nashua Telegraph Kid Sports Wrapup August 28th

The sights and sounds of cheerleaders were in the air in the Tree Streets neighborhood recently the Nashua Police Athletic League recently held its first annual “Downtown Cheer Camp” at the PAL Youth Safe Haven on Ash St.

Offered only to members of three organizations – the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Nashua, the PAL Youth Safe Haven, and Girls, Inc. – the cheer camp was held right on out on the city blacktop of PAL’s park area between Ash Street and Palm Street across from the Youth Safe Haven. More than 40 girls, ages 5-15, participated in the free, three day camp in order to learn the basics of competitive cheerleading. The instructors were coaches and the older, more experienced cheerleaders from the national champion PAL Force youth spirit team.

Officer Josh Santiago, the “PAL Officer” and program director assigned to the PAL Youth Safe Haven, said, “In addition to providing a fun camp to the girls, we’re hoping some of them take an interest in organized cheer and participate on spirit teams like the PAL Force, the Elks Crusaders, or the middle school cheer teams at Fairgrounds, Elm Street and Pennichuck.”

South High School junior Angelica Levesque, an instructor and counselor at the camp, said, “Its just so much fun because the girls are new to cheer and excited to learn.” According to Cheer Camp Coordinator Maureen MacKay, “It’s as much fun for the coaches as it is for the girls.”

Nashua PAL, a not-for-profit organization, offers daily homework help, a computer lab, library, academic and social enrichment programming, recreation room, and a fenced-off playground in the inner city. After initially conducting special community events in Nashua’s “Tree Streets” neighborhood, PAL established the Nashua PAL Boxing Club, which now includes over 80 athletes training and competing at various levels. Its nationally recognized PAL “Cruisers” Cross Country running program (which recently merged with the Gate City Striders youth program) was also launched in 1994.

In 2005, the Ash Street community center was designated as a “Youth Safe Haven” by the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation. According to PAL athletic director Joe Laplante, “We see the cheer camp as right in line with PAL’s mission of reaching out and providing services to kids in all of Nashua’s neighborhoods, including downtown. And if they continue into more competitive programs and the structure those programs provide, all the better.”

Anyone interested in volunteering for Nashua PAL can call the PAL Youth Safe Haven at 594-3733 or e-mail nashuapalvolunteers@gmail.com.

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GATE CITY STRIDERS AND NASHUA PAL CRUISERS MERGE TO FORM UNIFIED YEAR-ROUND
CLUB

Nashua Telegraph Sunday June 26, 2011

Nashua's two leading youth running organizations, the Nashua Police
Athletic League (PAL) Cruisers and the Gate City Striders, announced that
they have merged their youth cross country and track and field operations
to provide a single youth running club, offering cross country in the fall
and track and field in the spring and summer. The new youth club, called
the "Nashua PAL/Gate City Striders," will field a single, unified slate of
teams in the fall 2011 cross country season after the interscholastic
middle school season has ended. Open to boys and girls of all abilities
from
Nashua and surrounding communities throughout southern New Hampshire and
northeastern Massachusetts,
teams will be formed in all age groups from "Sub-Bantam' (7 and under) to
Young Men & Women (17 & 18) to train
together and compete in events sanctioned by USA Track & Field (USATF).

Gate City Striders president Michelle Poublon explained, "In some ways,
this is a matter of old friends reuniting. Several Gate City youth coaches
have coached in the PAL organization, and many PAL coaches and parents are
adult members of our running club." PAL Cruisers board chairman Nick Dahl
added, "This is definitely a situation where the whole will be greater than
the sum of its parts. Nashua-area runners supporting each other in
training and competition will allow more of them to get the most of of
cross country and track and field as they progress toward high school. And
in the process, the kids will have more fun!"

Another benefit, noted by PAL Athletic Director Joe Laplante, is that the
partnership "will make parents' lives easier. Before, many athletes were
required to re-register with USATF, switching their club affiliation each
spring and
fall, because PAL offered only cross country and the Striders offered
spring track and field. With this new, unified club, parents will be
saved the headache of continually shifting club affiliations."

The nonprofit, 600+ member Gate City Striders organization is a year-round
running club for adults and kids, focused on developing a healthy
lifestyle. Its youth program, like Nashua PAL's, utilizes experienced
volunteer
coaches to prepare participants for the USATF Junior Olympic program. As
Poublon noted,
"Working with our partners at PAL, our objective will remain the same:
keeping fun at the forefront of our efforts to train young athletes to be
the best they can be while educating them about proper stretching,
nutrition, and mental
preparation."

The Nashua Police Athletic League (“Nashua PAL”), a not-for-profit youth
enrichment organization, was founded and incorporated in 1989. PAL's Ash
St. Community Center, located in Nashua's downtown “Tree Streets”
neighborhood, was designated as a “Youth Safe Haven” by the Milton S.
Eisenhower Foundation in 2005. The PAL Youth Safe Haven offers daily
homework help, a computer lab, library, academic and social enrichment
programming, a recreation room, and a fenced-off playground in the inner
city. PAL Athletic programs include boxing, middle school street hockey,
football and cheerleading, as well as cross country. Over 700 elementary
school runners participated PAL's Elemntary School Cross Country program in
2010.

For more information about the new Nashua PAL/Gate City Striders program,
including registration, contact Chris Morrow at nashuapaljocord@gmail.com
or Michelle Poublon at m.poublon@comcast.net.

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