Marywood Women's Soccer Team Provides Hope for Kids in Guatemala

From time to time on the College Sports Blog, I want to recognize individual student-athletes and teams who make a positive difference and provide hope for those less fortunate. One example of the is the Women's Soccer Team at Marywood University, a Catholic university located in Scranton, PA.

This past Summer, the Women's Soccer Team traveled to Guatemala where they donated old soccer uniforms to a school so the kids would be able to feel like they are part of a team. Javier Diaz, a Resident Director at Marywood, went on a service trip to Guatemala. While there, Diaz realized the need for things like soccer uniforms and balls. Senior Lisa Hanselman, a Captain on the Women's soccer team, put Diaz in touch with Head Coach Andrew Smith. "Javier was looking for old items, such as used balls, to donate, and we were planning on sending old uniforms to Eurosport’s (a soccer supplier company) “Passback Program,” which donates old items to underprivileged people around the world” Coach Smith said. "We figured by donating the goods through Javier, we would at least know where they ended up.” Smith continued.

The team went to two cities in Guatemala, and the donation of old uniforms was not the only service project they were involved with. They first went to San Lucas De Toliman, where the team was involved with a reforestation program and a coffee project, which included but was not limited to manual labor (carrying sender blocks from one location to the next in order to speed up the building process) and picking bad coffee beans from 100 pound sacks of dried coffee beans. Part of the labor was to help build a coffee bean station which would allow the local Catholic church to dry more coffee beans which results in more coffee and more product. The reforestation project involved putting dirt in plastic bags but wasn't limited to just that. The Marywood team worked jointly with groups from two other universities: Loyola Univ. of New Orleans and Rice University from Houston, TX.

The Marywood team then traveled to the city of Chichicastenango, where they went to distribute the uniforms to a school of indigenous boys and girls called Internado de Ninas Indigenas, Centro Educativo Anunciata. The private school's main goal is to help the indigenous people of Guatemala and allows families to pay only as much as they can.
The soccer coach there was overwhelmed with gratitude. "The coach at first did not want to accept such a gift because he noticed the cost of one uniform (47 USA dollars)” Diaz said. However, the coach did accept the uniforms and promised that there is great potential for some of the kids to play professional soccer. The coach said he would use the donated uniforms to use in tournaments.

“Often, young kids in these countries play soccer in bare feet and worn out clothing and balls. These uniforms will certainly make them feel more like a team, and we are just glad we could help out in some small way.” Marywood Head Coach Andrew Smith said. “We are certainly glad these old uniforms will help better the quality of life for these future stars,” Smith continued.

The Marywood Women's Soccer Team is just one of thousands of examples of student-athletes volunteering their time and efforts to better improve and positively impact lives around the world. By the way, the Marywood team has excelled on the field as well. In 2008, the Lady Pacers won the Colonial States Athletic Conference Championship and gained the program's first ever berth in the NCAA Div. lll National Tournament. More on this story can be found by going to the school's website www.marywood.edu/athletics.