Street Soccer USA Global Finalist at Beyond Sport Awards:

Chaired by Tony Blair and founded by Nick Keller, Beyond Sport hosts a global summit each year dedicated to exploring and bolstering the role of sport in social change. As the business of sport has developed enormously over recent decades, it is only now that we are beginning to realize the potential for sport as development tool for addressing the world's problems.

Street Soccer USA was featured among shortlisted project worldwide for the Beyond Sport Awards at the second annual Beyond Sport Summit in Chicago. Mayor Daley opened the summit and Olympian Michael Johnson, who actually visited our New York Street Soccer project in the Spring and kicked the ball around with our athletes, was on hand along with many other Beyond Sport Ambassadors, which included Senator Bill Bradley, Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan, Scott Blackmun, CEO of the US Olympic Committee, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, New Orlean Saints Owner Rita Benson Leblanc, NBA star Dikembe Mutombo, US Women's soccer great Julie Foudy, and many others.

The Summit allowed our organization to dialogue with other practitioners and academics from all over the world as well as corporate leaders and sports institutions interested in playing a role in using sport for social change.

Our inclusion in the summit as a highlighted project reflects on the efforts of all our passionate project leads and partner organizations throughout the United States and bodes well for the expansion of our role in combating homeless and poverty though the vehicle of sport. Please visit the Beyond Sport website www.beyondsport,org website and follow the progress of this organization as it opens it US branch and US specific summit next year in Denver Colorado.

Many thanks to volunteer, players, and supporters of Street Soccer USA, and a special thank you as well to the Beyond Sport Staff for incredible platform they have build for the work we are so passionately engaged in.