Help Roller Derby Get Back on Track
$5,000 will help between 5 and 20 roller derby leagues and organizations to obtain their venue or practice space; pay debts, service agreements or utilities; and to get back on their track via microgrants of $250-$1000.
Throughout the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) and our community members put #LivesBeforeLaces in a way that no other sport has. Now it's time to help our community lace up again.
The WFTDA Covid-19 Return to Roller Derby Guidelines have provided guidance for leagues globally on how to assess their local infection rates and pandemic restrictions to know how to safely return to roller derby activity. These guidelines were highly praised by the press and were requested by organizations such as LEAP Sports Scotland, Temple University, Hawaiian Airlines and US Rowing, aside from the roller derby community. To date, we have had no reported cases of COVID-19 as a result of playing WFTDA roller derby.
Our refusal to contribute to cases has led to a 6 million US-$ loss in revenue from canceled WFTDA and member-league games and tournaments in 2020 due to the COVID-19 shutdown worldwide.
So to help rebuild our community, we are establishing the WFTDA COVID-19 Recovery Fund, providing microgrants to provide relief and to support our community in their post-COVID-19 roller derby recovery.
The WFTDA envisions a world in which sports are inclusive, where women, genderqueer and gender nonbinary participants of all backgrounds are asked to lead and create a safer, more collaborative future for global sport. Roller Derby offers a unique platform to actively address one of the root causes of inequity, specifically the lack of pathways that encourage women-identifying leadership in sport.
Women’s sports are used to doing heavy economic lifting within their own communities and will continue to do so coming out of the pandemic. But this time we can’t do this alone.
- Donate - any amount helps leagues minimize their financial risk and get back on track.
- Share - Help us promote the recovery fund and share the message.
- Read up more on our work and impact
- Partner with us
- Support us in other ways
Please note: There are related payment processing fees and WFTDA is reserving a 10% admin fee to cover costs like Paypal transfer fees, instead of passing those fees onto the leagues who need it most.