Soccer Balls, Elementary Schools, and Community Support ... An Experiment in Family Volunteering Chapter 3

Our Family Volunteering event in March was definitely my favorite so far!  My 13 year old son Donovan was in charge and had a cool idea to help his old elementary school.  Specifically, he remembered that when kids wanted to play soccer at lunch time, the balls were old, torn, deflated and often the wrong size.  He wanted to try to find a way to get new (or at least nicer) soccer balls for the kids. Since each classroom has one ball for the kids in that room, this meant our target was 30 balls.

Originally, I thought that each of us would ask people we know if they had any nice soccer balls sitting in their garage, maybe go door to door in a few neighborhoods, and that teammates on my O40 team would likely make the biggest contribution.  But that’s not what happened.

Donovan thought that his club team (Michigan Tigers FC) might contribute a few balls, and even though we figured our local semi-pro soccer team (AFC Ann Arbor) probably received lots of requests, we decided Donovan should write to them anyway.  To our surprise, Michigan Tigers donated 30 balls all by themselves! We were super excited and still making arrangements to pick them up when … AFC Ann Arbor responded and also donated 30 balls!  Plus they said they’d like to send the club Chairman and a couple of players to the school to help hand them out to the kids. We were overwhelmed by the support!

Now Donovan had to decide what to do with the other 30 balls.  After talking to some of his teammates, he learned that they had a similar experience at their elementary school too so we expanded the effort to two elementary schools.  

Our roles became clear.  My wife’s job was to work with the Principals and Physical Education teachers at each school to figure out the logistics of when and how we drop off the balls.  Donovan worked with AFC Ann Arbor to see when they were available, and asked Michigan Tigers if they wanted to send someone too. My older son Connor had the job of pumping up the balls that we had received.  And I was the chauffeur and photographer.

As it worked out, we did it on a Wednesday at lunchtime and pulled Donovan out of school so he could participate.  At the first school, the Principal introduced everyone and they all walked around the lunchroom talking to the kids, and then stepped outside to kick some of the new balls around with the whoever wanted to play.  After a quick but fun recess there, we drove to the other school and did the same thing. The kids were SO excited to see real soccer players and get their autographs, and I think Donovan felt like he was one of them for the day.  It was awesome to see how happy the kids were.

We are very proud of Donovan for coming up with the idea, and very thankful to AFC Ann Arbor and Michigan Tigers for supporting it so enthusiastically.  We learned how eager many people are to help others when asked, and that for us it feels much more personal and rewarding when we get to see and talk to the people we are trying to help.  And maybe this type of community is part of the reason soccer is called the beautiful game.

This is Chapter 3 of a 12-part series on Family Volunteering.  Previous articles can be accessed below:

Employee Pride, Physical Labor, and Nasty Goop ... An Experiment in Family Volunteering Chapter 2 (Mar 2018)

Q-tips, Peanut Butter, and a Deck of Cards ... An Experiment in Family Volunteering Chapter 1 (Feb 2018)

This Time It’s Personal: An Experiment in Family Volunteering (Jan 2018)