Chicago Land

The picture above is of the newly formed team out of Chicago. These pioneers come from the HESED House located in Aurora.

Their coach, Jason Holmes, is a uniquely motivated you man who started volunteering at the HESED House and never left. After getting his Law Degree he took on the position of Program Director. Jason's own desire to institute micro-programming at the homeless shelter fit the vision behind promoting the spread of street soccer programming. Look at these inspiring two updates Jason wrote about the dedication the players are already putting forth to be a part of the team:

"Hey Lawrence we had our fifth practice/conditioning session this morning…Things are going great and we are getting a lot of interest from people wanting to join the team. I’ve attached a photo of some of the guys from the team after this morning’s 5 am practice! It was 30 degrees out and the guys were up early ready to run! They’re real committed and are showing up consistently"

Here is an earlier message Jason sent:

"We just had our second practice and things are going great! The guys are motivated and determined. I think they are really taking ownership of the team and they seem genuinely connected. Last Wednesday we went on our first conditioning run, 3.5 miles. All the guys finished the run and in good time. A couple of the guys served as motivators for the rest of the team and a few of these guys had never talked with each other before our practices, are now friends. So things are going great!"

Hats are off to these athletes; we look forward to seeing them in DC this summer at the Homeless USA Cup, as well as to posting more updates on their progress here.