Dairy Farmers of Ontario will invest more than $1.5 million to make sports more accessible for Ontario youth as part of a multi-year partnership with the Ottawa Senators and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE).

The three-year partnership will be used to develop new community-level activations, promotions and engagement opportunities that provide youth with access to sports, healthy lifestyle education, and food literacy activities within their communities.

According to Graham Lloyd, Dairy Farmers of Ontario GM and CEO, the goal of the partnership is to promote youth dairy consumption, while also giving them greater access to sport, with 48 dairy producer committees across Ontario providing funding for teams.

“It’s a natural fit for Dairy Farmers to give back to the communities and make sports and healthy lifestyles an essential element of Canadiana,” he said, adding that the target demographic includes teens between 13- and 15-years-old.

Alongside the sponsorship of local community teams, the partnership will include promotion at Maple Leafs, Raptors, Toronto FC and Toronto Argonauts games, as well as community-based contests.

Activations will include the Dairy Farmers’ “Recharge With Milk” and “Stay Real With Milk” campaigns, with creative being placed in-stadium and through in-game promotions with the Ottawa Senators. The organization will also create special segments with the team’s strength and conditioning coach, Chris Schwarz.

“One of the things we’re going to try and roll out is contests within these community groups to get active on social media, promote what their doing and how their benefiting from this sponsorship,” he said. “We don’t want it to be an isolation of [providing funding], we want it to actually be a more holistic approach to working with them and identifying what their challenges and opportunities are.”

Promotions will begin rolling out within the next six months, with marketing, creative and promotion done in-house.