Community Service Event: Part II
05/23/16 | Women's Soccer
The Oregon women's soccer team participated in their second community service event of the spring. The service event was led by the 2016-17 sophomore class including Kyra Fawcett, Bayley Bruner, Hannah Wilson, Nicole Seaman, Marissa Everett, Taylor Kuroda, Malika Markham, Brianne Parsons and Sofia Chambers.
Head coach Kat Mertz implemented the program in 2014. Since then, the team has volunteered in many different ways in order to give back to the Eugene community.
“I strongly believe in giving back to the community,” Mertz said. “I want our team to have some ownership with the community, so I believe that if they create and organize a service event for our entire team, they will be more invested in the community. We are very fortunate at Oregon and I think that this is a great way to give back and show our appreciation.”
Soon-to-be sophomore Kyra Fawcett describes the service event which included putting on a three-on-three soccer tournament with the proceeds going to the Lane County Food Bank,
Freshman/Sophomore Women's Soccer Service Event:
By: Kyra Fawcett
As freshmen on the University of Oregon soccer team, we wanted to do something that would create a fun and different opportunity for the UO student body and our soccer team to help those in our community. As freshmen, we also wanted a way to introduce ourselves and become more familiar with other organizations on campus.
We decided to host a 3v3 soccer tournament for all UO students to help raise money for the Lane County Food Bank. Food for Lane County is a nonprofit food bank that works to alleviate hunger by creating access to food with a goal to eliminate hunger in Lane County.
We spent over two months and many hours preparing for the event. It was a long process, but we wanted to make sure that everything was going to go smoothly and be a success. After coordinating a date and time with the facilities department, we made flyers and started advertising to our student body. We hung up flyers around campus and even went to the recreation fields to help get the word out. We also approached organizations and individuals to see if they would like to participate. After many weeks of promoting the event, we had 10 teams signed up to participate.
The 3v3 soccer event took place on Saturday May 14. For the 10 teams participating we assigned 10 of our players to be coaches for these teams and the rest of our soccer team officiated the games. It was an awesome experience for our team to be able to have fun and enjoy the time with our student body while also helping to do our part to reduce hunger in our community.
Once the tournament started, it was fun to see everyone's competitive side come out. Every game was intense and all the teams had fans cheering them on. As the event came down to the semi-finals, all the other participants and teams were involved in cheering for the remaining teams. By the time the championship came around you could tell that everyone was motivated to win the event. This year's champion was some of our friends from the women's lacrosse team. The prize for winning the event was bragging rights that will last until next year's event.
We were able to raise over $200 that went to the Lane County Food Bank. That was a good start, but our goal for next year will be to surpass that. We presented the proceeds of the tournament to the Lane County Food Bank and it was a very fulfilling experience. Knowing that we, in some small way, are helping people in the community provide food for their families is very humbling and an awesome feeling at the same time. The food bank was very appreciative of our donation and wanted to thank all those that contributed.
As a team we are not only trying to be the best soccer players we can be, but we also strive to become better as individuals. These service events are an excellent way to help our community and get students involved in the process and help us all be better people.
We would like to congratulate all those that participated and made the event a success. We had such a fun time and we know now that it is something that we would like to continue to do in the future. Thanks to all the teams, coaching staff, and facility folks for making it a huge success. We hope to see everyone out at Papé Field this coming fall to cheer on the UO soccer team. Go Ducks!
