Hockey NSW put on a community event at the Orange Hockey Centre as a way to engage with the community.

Pulbrook is Hockey NSW's participation manager and knows how important it is to get kids involved in community sport.

"It's vital," she said.

"If they can have a sense of belonging somewhere it really helps them in their tough times as teenagers in society at the moment.

"For a lot of them, they can walk to the hockey fields and get involved.

"Even the kids that were there on Thursday, they brought their footy with them and jumped down on there and utilised the facilities that were there."

Pulbrook said one of the biggest issues around the Glenroi hockey complex was the knowledge of who can use it and when.

"A lot of the kids around that area don't really understand, because there's big gates they feel like they can't go in there," she said.

"When I spoke to them a few years ago they thought it was owned by someone with lots of money and I explained to them that it's a community centre just like anything else and they can utilise it when it's open.

"We don't want them to feel like it's just a locked up facility and they're not part of it. We've all been locked out of sporting facilities for the last two years so it will be great to get everyone back into it."

Usually this event would be a culmination of a week-long program, but because of COVID, the decision was made to condense it into one afternoon.

"We offered them to use the multi-million dollar facility, we had a barbecue and allowed the kids to create some Aboriginal coloured artworks that we'll be placing up around the facility," Pulbrook added.

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