Sharing the Love

In the spirit of the season, allow me to highlight an organization that's doing really important and interesting work pushing back against the inexorable tide of money in youth sports. Said, differently, the very good folks at Open Goal Project are working to create opportunities in the game for disadvantaged kids in the Washington, D.C. area.

Open Goal Project was founded by Amir Lowery and Simon Landau, with the express mission to "create opportunities for young players from low-income families and underserved communities to access high-level soccer and grow with the game, on and off the field, to provide resources that empower those players and families to navigate the costs and overcome hidden barriers associated with playing, and to use soccer as a vehicle for cultural enrichment, higher educational opportunities, and greater life experiences."

Here's a little shoutout for the project from ESPN:

Amir played collegiately at Wake Forest and then in MLS and USL for nearly a decade before coming back to his hometown to start the project. He's an impressive dude. We have a mutual friend, which is how I learned about Open Goal Project. I connected Amir with the club I volunteer for, and we've been working on ways to create playing opportunities for the project's kids and their academy team, District of Columbia Football Club.

One of Open Goal Project's early success stories is Ariana Reyes, who's a rising redshirt junior at JMU. She played in 19 games as a redshirt freshman, starting 10, before missing all of last season. Here's a little bit of her story.

Open Goal Project has kids playing at several other colleges, kids who might not have had that opportunity without the work Amir, Simon and their team are doing. If you've got a couple of bucks you don't know what to do with, these guys could use it. They manage to do a lot with a little. I'm rooting for them.