Editor:
Thank you for the wonderful article you published regarding junior high soccer (Nov. 2). I feel it is important to have public awareness in our community of the positive activities that our youth are involved in. I had to smile when I also read your article regarding printing mistakes, as I have to ask for some corrections myself regarding the soccer article.
The girls’ junior high soccer team lost the opening game to North Marion not 0-3, but 3-4. We also won a game due to forfeit in French Prairie because the game was called for unsportsmanlike conduct by French Prairie. As a coach and parent, I must add that our young lady athletes represented our community with graciousness and integrity during that very trying experience. Therefore our record was 2-6-1, noting that almost all the losses were within one or two goals.
I personally wanted to take the opportunity, since it is available, to add a few additional thank-yous. We appreciate our communities support for the Junior High Soccer program this year. We had many fund-raisers and there are so many individuals and businesses that donated time and money to make this successful season possible. I especially wanted to thank Wal-Mart for the matching fund grant, Les Schwab for the opportunity for car wash days, Safeway for the donation of Gatorade products for our first dribble-a-thon and the district Transportation Department for working with us to bus us to our away games.
In light of recent concerns regarding the drug busts and bullying at the skate park, I as a parent, feel it necessary to continue to help provide as many healthy alternatives for the youth in our community to be involved in. This soccer program kept 40-plus of our youth active for a three-month period. Studies have shown that when youth have opportunities to be involved in activities, they are more likely not to do things that will get them in trouble.
Unfortunately, funding for extras seem to be an issue for our school district; therefore we are asking our community for help to continue to fund this program. We have been invited to apply for a five-year grant to run the junior high soccer program,which also includes a field enhancement grant and are currently in the process of writing it through the school district. We still will be fund-raising during this grant process.
We plan to have car washes, dunk tank opportunities, another dribble-a-thon, t-shirt/sweatshirt sales and a possible community soccer camp over the summer. We raised approximately $2,800 for this season and have been told if we could fund the program outside of the school budget, the school district would adopt the soccer program in the junior high school.
We have the opportunity to set funds into an account for next year’s season. If you are interested in donating to the junior high soccer program, please call Kristin Adams at 367-6962 at or me at 367-8134. Thank you!
Lela Danforth
Sweet Home