The effort of members of Coastal FC’s U11 Thunder to collect both food and soccer gear for those in need was a rousing success earlier this month.
At the Umbro Challenge Cup – held at South Surrey Athletic Park over the May long weekend – the Peninsula girls youth soccer club staffed a donation tent, and collected approximately 2,000 soccer jerseys and several hundred pairs of shorts. The gear is to be packaged up and sent to youth soccer players in Haiti in early June, in a joint project with White Rock thrift store, Project Aftershock, which aims to help impoverished residents of Haiti still receiving from the devasting earthquake that hit the small island nation in 2010.
Closer to home, the girls also collected six bins of non-perishable food items, which were donated to local food banks.
The team fared well on the field, too, finishing first in their age division with three wins and one tie.
Also last week, the team was selected as BMO Team of the Week, and they’re now in the running for a grand prize of $125,000, which would be used by Coastal FC to upgrade local soccer pitches. The winner is announced in late summer.