NASHUA – The votes are in for the Your Voice Your Choice, Tree Streets Neighborhood Project and residents responded favorably for a futsal court, which will be added to the area within the next year.

Futsal is similar to soccer, only with a heavier focus on foot skills where teams of five players dangle around each other with a smaller, low-bouncing ball. The game is played on a small, hard surface indoor court, and the objective is still the same, getting the ball into the opponent’s goal, only players show off more of their tricks and skills on their way up the court. Some of soccer’s greatest players to ever lace their boots and hit the pitch grew up playing futsal, such as Pele, Ronaldo and Neymar to name a few.

With a strong desire for an opportunity to play on an official court, the neighborhood will have a futsal court up and running within the next year for a price of $20,000.

During the fall and winter Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess initiated the Your Voice Your Choice, Tree Streets Neighborhood Project in order to engage residents living in the neighborhood in directing an investment of $25,000 of city money to for improvements. The concept is based on participatory budgeting. This is when community members directly influence how part of a public budget should be spent. With help from NeighborWorks and Nashua PAL, a group of ideas were formulated to spend the funds. Ideas were gathered in December and January, and more than 160 submissions were received. Then, nine projects moved forward for voting, which took place between Feb. 18 and March 1. The futsal court received 168 votes and more than 300 ballots were cast.

“So many great ideas were submitted for this project, and the city is excited to get started on the futsal court,” Donchess said in a statement. “Thank you to the city employees involved with the implementation and planning of this initiative, you did a great job. I also want to thank the Tree Streets residents who came up with such wonderful ideas and for showing how much you care about the community.”

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