Aiden and her family supporting GOALS through annual equipment drives

Guest Blog Post from Aiden -

My sister, Quinn, and I ran an equipment collection for Goals Haiti this past spring. This was not the first collection I have done. In fact, my brother, Dylan started the tradition for my home soccer club, John Jay FC, in 2013 when he was a freshman in High School. My next oldest brother Brenden continued the collection and now I am running the collection for Goals and my sister will keep the tradition going. I have seen and volunteered these past years however; this year was different.

This year we had masks on. At first, I was not sure if we would be even able to do a collection. However, I started to hear from members of my community and school asking when we would be doing it. I repeatedly heard from neighbors and friends how Haiti really needs our help now and how they have been cleaning out their closets waiting for the spring collection. I realized that the outreach in our small community has spread far. By doing this collection every year, every spring, and talking to people about the mission of GOALS Haiti we have invested our whole community in their work.

As soon as the president of our soccer club gave the okay, we masked up and set up our collection stations. The people came with their donations and good will. I was happy to actually be doing something to help and so was my community. Many people were saying that as they were thinking about how tough their year was, they could not imagine how hard this past year was in Haiti.

Soccer has always given me a sense of community and belonging which is comforting and healing. Now I realize that while doing our part to help the kids of Haiti, we also have strengthened and bonded our own soccer club and our little town.