Peace Passers

<p>Soccer has always been part of my life. I grew up playing in Gainesville and after graduating from Buchholz High School, I went to Flagler College in St. Augustine on a soccer scholarship. We had a great team made up of many international students and we all played well together. There, I learned to surf and continued playing soccer at a competitive level.</p><p>I graduated in 2004 with a degree in business administration and worked in an office for a couple of years. But what I really wanted to do was travel internationally and find some bigger waves to surf and some much needed new experiences.</p><p>My friends Sean and Scott, teammates from Flagler, agreed. Our first trip was to Costa Rica. We brought a few soccer balls with us and learned quickly that soccer was a great way to make new friends wherever we were. The soccer ball literally seemed to act as a "cultural ice breaker." It represented a commonality, I think — something in common that we as North Americans and Costa Ricans enjoyed. We would strike up games on the street and games on the beach using sticks or rocks as goals. As long as there was a ball, there was a game.</p><p>We decided to start leaving the ball with our new friends at the end of each game. It just made sense, and everyone was happy. We started in Costa Rica and then moved on to Nicaragua where the poverty level drops significantly as soon as you cross the border. We made sure to stuff as many balls as possible into our bags and also bring along a couple of goal nets. The locals in Nicaragua were welcoming and happy to have us in their country. We immediately made some good friends and surfed great waves. But the poverty we encountered there was sad to see and did not seem fair. These people were living with dirt floors in their homes. When you see kids running around literally kicking coconuts in their bare feet, and then you think of your own childhood and not ever being deprived of adequate gear to play the game, you just realize it's too easy not to do a little more.</p><p> Traveling to places where kids make soccer balls out of twine and plastic bags opened my eyes to the grim reality of others' low standard of living. Americans have too much .... Our stuff lives in nicer environments in self-storage units compared to how many people live throughout the world.</p><p>And that's how, in 2006, the idea for Peace Passers got its start.</p><p> We figured most of the kids we've coached over the years and people we know who play have a few extra pairs of used soccer shoes that they wouldn't mind getting rid of. In addition to that, Stephen "Deck" Decker, with whom I grew up playing soccer, was coaching in North Carolina and mentioned that there was a bin of used soccer balls and 10 sets of old uniforms in their warehouse and that we could have them.</p><p>We met in Atlanta for a Modest Mouse concert and unloaded more than 200 balls into the back of my truck. And Peace Passers was born, a charitable organization set up to distribute soccer equipment on a larger scale throughout the world to people who need it. In short, Peace Passers was not founded by one person, but rather by a group of friends, including my sister Candace, who have all played soccer together in the past. We agreed to put in the work to create the organization and maintain it along the way.</p><p>In January 2008, Scott created the website www.peacepassers.org and the organization really took off once we started to reach a broader audience. Soon enough, people started sending us gear from all parts of the country. We became a tax deductible non-profit (501c3) in May 2008.</p><p>Frustrated with too much gear and not enough distributing, in the summer of 2008, Deck and I packed my truck full of soccer equipment, camping gear and a few surfboards and drove from Florida to Nicaragua, covering more than 5,500 miles with no real time schedule.</p><p> Over the six-week journey, we met up with church groups, orphanages, and sometimes just stopped by schools with a few balls for the kids. We got stuck in deep sand driving on the beach in Mexico one week into the trip and almost lost everything when the tide came in and literally flooded inside the floor boards. We got towed out just in time and repaid the man with soccer gear.</p><p>We drove along the coast in search of waves and up into the mountains of El Salvador to visit a school run by an American and his El Salvadoran family, which held classes and soccer practice for kids in a gang-prone area. There is a connection with soccer and people that automatically bypasses cultural preconceptions. It is so simple but at the same time so powerful. Regardless of race, religion, or economic standing, the game allows people to have fun together no matter what.</p><p>I lived in Nicaragua for nearly a year, working as a surfing instructor, tour guide and surfing videographer. But the most important work I did while I was there was helping to bring soccer to the kids in San Juan del Sur. We hosted two beach soccer tournaments with the locals, ran coaching clinics, and gave tactical/technical assistance to teams and players. The kids were excited just to be given the opportunity to compete in front of their friends and family. It was great to be there fulfilling the wishes of the organization. We have also just received funding for a beach soccer complex that will go up this year.</p><p>Today we have a warehouse in St. Augustine, one in Colorado, and one in Louisiana, all acting as distribution hubs for equipment that is delivered by people traveling around the world to those who need it. I get e-mails almost every week with photos of smiling people who have been touched by Peace Passers: I received a photo of kids in Kenya kicking balls around with Peace Passers written on them, and another of a church group that went to Honduras to help construct buildings and hooked up the local teams with new jerseys and balls.</p><p>The greatest impact thus far has been through our relationship with ComunidadConnect.org, a foundation to promote and manage organized sports in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Partnering with the foundation's director Jon Thompson, we have been able to identify specific needs within the community and to support the development of teams and growth of their soccer leagues. This year, for the first time ever, the girls will have a league of their own, which was paid for by a Peace Passers' sponsor. Just $250 covers a year's worth of referrees, a scoring table, and utility support. </p><p>Possibly one of the best attributes of the game of soccer itself is teamwork. Since its inception, our Peace Passers team has grown from five to 500, and new members join every day. Reaching 19 different countries worldwide and 31 towns within these countries, Peace Passers has given away more than 800 soccer balls, 800 pairs of shoes, 2,200 team jerseys, 900 shorts, 300 shinguards, 2,000 pairs of socks, and more than 500 miscellaneous items such as duffle bags, whistles, pumps, cones and nets.</p><p>People continue to travel specifically for Peace Passers distribution purposes, and when someone is going on a trip already, we send them gear to take with them. The organization has now donated gear to people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Suriname, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Belize, Zambia, Niger, South Africa, Uganda, Haiti, Tanzania, Cuba and Iraq.</p><p>We have had an astonishing reaction by young kids who want to do their part. One 5-year-old in North Carolina recently had a birthday party and asked everyone to bring a ball to donate to us. He ended up with 15 balls. We hope to have a program in effect named "I'm a Peace Passer" that encourages kids to get involved with charity work at a young age.</p><p> Peace Passers has made me realize that you do not need a bunch of material THINGS to be happy. It has made me more aware of what is else is going on outside of the small reality bubble in the United States. It's helped me realize the power of communities when they come together the power of individuals when they join others to create a team with a shared purpose towards a greater good.</p><p>We are aware that we are not going to make unfortunate people more fortunate, but we know that we can bring them some joy through the game of soccer. Peace Passers has provided a positive outlet for the pair of soccer shoes and old ball that would otherwise rot away in somebody's garage, which in turn provides hope for a stranger through happiness and play. Seeing the smiles that are created is what makes it all worth it.</p>