This post has nothing to do with family law. But it has everything to do with children and social issues. As family lawyers, we often find ourselves with soccer moms and dads as clients or parties in custody cases.
Imagine what it must be like not to have a soccer mom or dad! Not to have moms and dads sitting on the sidelines cheering the team on. Not to have soccer moms and dads to treat the kids to pizza or other junk food on the way home -- either to celebrate or to massage wounded spirits of a team that lost the game today. Imagine playing on an empty stomach.
Imagine what it must be like to have to practice on a field in a dangerous neighborhood, to wait nearly all season for goals so you can practice in a game-like setting! Imagine playing teams who have the most stylish uniforms and who have shoes appropriate to the game, when some members on your team don't have athletic shoes and the team members' single moms work for $10/hour at a menial job.
The New York Times today published an article about a remarkable team in Clarkston, Georgia. Refugees Find Hope and Hostility on the Soccer Field. I've saved this to my Times File so that you can read it. As many as half the residents in this town are refugees from war-torn countries around the world. Most of these refugees are black. The town where they've been relocated was mostly white before they arrived. I'd like you to read this wonderful story about a bunch of boys and an amazing female coach.
Soccer is a way of building self-esteem, independence, and, who knows--it could be a way out of poverty! As the New York Times describes the coach, Luma Mufleh, who grew up in Amman, Jordan:
"The Fugees’ coach exemplifies the best. A woman volunteering in a league where all the other coaches are men, some of them paid former professionals from Europe, she spends as much time helping her players’ families make new lives here as coaching soccer."
I was moved to contribute in order to help this soccer program. There are at least two ways to help. See their website at http://www.fugeesfamily.org/ There’s a link on the website for giving (the organization takes only 3 % for administrative purposes), or you can direct a check to Fugees Family, PO Box 388, Scottsdale, GA 30079-0388. State how you want your gift used, e.g., to promote the soccer team, for family nutrition, etc.
If you can think of other friends or neighbors (or parents on your child's soccer team) who'd like to help, please forward this email to them or send them a permalink to this blog. For a photo of this neat group, see
Comments