This fall, GOALS weathered storms, cholera and political upheaval to grow its program and continue to reach more kids in rural Haiti. Here's what's happened in the past few months:
- GOALS launched its first after-school program in Destra. With an "open door" policy, where any kid is welcome any weekday, the program grew from 65 kids the first week to 175 kids in its final week. The program is run by 4 Haitian staff and 13 youth volunteers, who are highlighted as GOALS "Dream Team" members.
- In October, just before the cholera epidemic began to spread widely, GOALS organized a community event for Global Handwashing Day.
- Dream Team students are now featured on The School Fund! The School Fund is a new partner organization that links students in the developing world directly with individual funders around the world.
- In November, GOALS Founder and Director, Kona Shen, spoke at a panel at Brown University as a young alum about sport and development in Haiti. Following outreach efforts, talented students from around the United States have joined the GOALS Team as interns to improve GOALS and expand its reach in Haiti.
- We recently became a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit in the state of Florida. Our national nonprofit status is processing and in the meantime, your donations and contributions to GOALS are already tax deductible. Learn more about how to help.
- GOALS benefited from a generous in-kind donation from the US Soccer Federation through its Passback program. The Passback program collects new and gently used soccer gear and redistributes it to players throughout the world. This donation was organized and coordinated by Soccer1 founder, Josh Trautwein.
- GOALS is now a part of the Up2Us and the Beyond Sport communities!
Interested in spreading the word about GOALS? Send an email to contact@goalshaiti.org to become a GOALS ambassador in your community.