It’s been a rough last couple months for the Street Soccer Seattle family. Beyond missing our outlet and community through soccer practices and games, many players have lost jobs and have reduced access to their usual resources; drop-ins, meals, bathrooms, or places just to be with others. Our coaches and players are used to the street soccer skill “Adapt Your Play”, and we are doing our best during these times. Since early March, in place of our weekly practices, we’re putting out at-home training material and coaches are checking in with players 1:1 over messages and calls. Then on Sunday evenings when we’d usually be playing a game at Arena Sports Magnuson, players and coaches jump on a Zoom call to check in with each other. Where players need, coaches are helping players tap into relief funds and programs to help them through these extra difficult time where many of them were already working to overcome hurdles before COVID-19.
We’re looking forward to the times when we can hold practice and games again, when we can rise to the challenge together as a team, and when we feel the comfort of a teammate beside us. Yet we aren’t exactly looking forward to returning back to “normal”. While “normal” has been nicer to our players then the current COVID-19 days, society has been pretty comfortable with a “normal” that allows for societal injustices and discrepancies that hurt Street Soccer Seattle players and other disadvantaged communities. Because of our players’ legal statuses, lack of housing, skin color, economic status, personal or family history of drug abuse or mental illness, and/or LGBTQ+ identity, the cards are stacked against them in our “normal” times. As we strive to come out of these difficult COVID-19 days, we can’t accept settling back into our broken “normal”, we must take this opportunity to wrestle with the pains of the disadvantaged that have become evermore obvious during COVID-19. As you, your communities, your companies, and our government work to put back together the shattered society, We challenge you to question how it impacts those typically overlooked, make sure they have a seat at the table and your perspectives have an opportunity to be impacted by their voice.
One opprotunity to take a step forward in this challenge is to support a local non-profit during GiveBIG 2020. There are many organizations that have already been doing the work to breakdown barriers and support disadvantaged communities prior to COVID-19. With your help, they will be able to continue to do so. Street Soccer Seattle is a small non-profit among some much heavier hitters when it comes to supporting the disadvantaged, primarily homeless adults. While we lean on our partners to provide direct services, we do believe our program provides important life skills, community, and support that our players aren’t able to get the same way through other organizations. During GiveBIG 2020, we would be honored to receive your receive your support.
Donations through GiveBIG are open now and lead up to the big two-day push on May 5 & 6. You can access our donation portal in the link below. |
