Community Partnership Update - Spring 2008

The 2008 spring season of the Virginia Legacy SC Community Partnership is about to begin. For the first time ever, we are sponsoring an NSCAA state coaching course for our college student coaches, along with several other coaches from various recreation teams. Most of our coaches have played the game, but have no formal training to coach. This course is being offered to them at no charge.

The 4 schools that have had teams in the past each have 2 teams this spring.  1 team is made up of Grade 1 and 2 and the other is Grade 3 and 4. Two new schools, Rawls Byrd and Matoaka have a new third and fourth grade team. In all, we will have 10 teams and about 140 children being served by the program. Practices will begin Monday, February 25, 2008 and the last games will be in early May. Once again we will offer the participants a chance to go to a day camp this summer at the WISC and also, of course, try out for travel soccer in the fall. Several of our participants have moved into the more competitive soccer programs at the club and we continue to support them through scholarships.

The VLSC Community Partnership is a charter member of the new Urban Soccer Collaborative. This organization includes many of the top organizations serving inner-city youth, and it is a terrific organization for the advancement of soccer in this country and also to serve underserved communities. You can visit their site at www.ussoccerfoundation.org.

In all, our community partnership program involves 46 adults from the College of William and Mary, the Virginia Legacy SC, the James City County Recreation Department and Williamsburg-James City County Schools. The 140 children served come from all over our community, representing all diverse constituencies.

Next year we hope to add 4 more teams and 2 schools. The ability to do this is provided by a generous grants from the Williamsburg Community health Foundation and also many generous individuals and businesses.