MOSES LAKE – The Moses Lake Grid Kids football season is now in its fourth week. The program’s administrator, Brian Gwinn, said the season has been going great. along with the addition of a separate girls' flag football part of the program. 

“The overall common goal has always been and will be to get as many kids as possible to play football and get them to stay playing football all the way up to junior high and then on to high school,” said Gwinn. “It’s great for our community, having kids involved in something is wonderful, and that’s part of the reason why I’m part of it.” 

This year, the Grid Kids boys have five fifth- and sixth-grade teams and six third- and fourth-grade teams who play tackle football and eight first and second-grade teams who play flag football, he said. The girls ended up with enough players to make six flag football teams that play five on five at Columbia Middle School every Saturday. 

“We do have girls that play first and second-grade flag, but there wasn’t enough to make teams for that, so they just stayed with the regular flag kids,” said Gwinn. “Anytime we’ve had first and second grade fla,g it’s always been considered co-ed. In fact our entire program has always been considered co-ed.”  

The flag football portion of the program was done in partnership with NFL Flag, where they provided all the equipment needed to play. This partnership allowed girls from third through twelfth grade to easier access to participate in Grid Kids. 

“It was a good change for us to work with our first and second graders because it made it a lot easier to get the equipment, and they have that equipment a little bit more geared for everybody,” he said. 

The Grid Kids have around 320 youth athletes in the program this season with about 55 girls who are strictly girls flag, and the rest participating in tackle. He said the program has slightly fewer players this year, but he expects there to be an increase in the coming years, especially with the rising popularity of Flag Football and the NFL partnership. 

Two things that Gwinn said make the Grid Kids program stick out from other programs is that they combine grades for creating teams to ensure the same teams aren’t playing every week and focus on strictly playing home games. 

“Just making sure that we fit a good niche for a lot of people where so many sports travel and you have to drive and wait and spend a ton of money,” he said. “There’s other things going on and people have other interests and (Grid Kids) is one of the only organizations that’s left that doesn’t involve traveling around.” 

    Grid Kids player Tobias Pacheco runs toward the sideline during a game this season. The Grid Kids program focuses on playing games in town to make attending the games easier for both the players and their families.
  

    During one of the first and second grade flag football games, Wells Tait, seen in a Lions jersey, chases down another player in a Dolphins jersey running with the ball.
  

    Jamisyn Martinez stands in front of the scoreboard at Lions Field after playing in a flag football game with the Grid Kids. Grid Kids administrator Brian Gwinn said the program has played co-ed football in the past, especially with the younger teams, but now has brought more girls into the program.
  

    The Steelers’ third and fourth grade team gathers around their coach, Eric Dominguez, during one of the games. The Grid Kids program is split between tackle football teams and flag football teams, with the older boys teams mostly participating in tackle.
  

    Grid Kids girls, Sohpia LaGrave, Carlee Reffett and Josie Carlstrom pose for a photo following one of their games. With the addition of NFL Flag, Grid Kids saw enough signups to have six girls teams put together and had around 55 girls in total.