Salem Youth Donate Soccer Balls to Needy Kids in Sierra Leone

“It was like asking, do you want some chocolate pudding?” Jim Sundholm director of Covenant World Relief and the Paul Carlson Partnership recalls. “They went wild.”

Trinity high school students initiated the project, which gave soccer balls to poor children in Sierra Leone. Photo courtesy: covchurch.org

(SALEM, Ore. ) - High school students at Trinity Covenant Church in Salem, Oregon recently embraced a universal language to help severely impoverished children in the Sierra Leone. They donated soccer balls.

“The children were thrilled,” says Jim Sundholm director of Covenant World Relief and the Paul Carlson Partnership (PCP).

He distributed nine balls among three villages during a recent trip to the African nation, one of the poorest in the world.

“It was like asking, do you want some chocolate pudding?” Sundholm recalls. “They went wild.”

The Trinity students initiated the project.

“It started when five students within two weeks came to me and said they wanted to do something to help people in Africa,” says youth pastor Carolyn Poterek. She figured God was trying to tell her something. But the group didn’t know specifically what to do, so Poterek called Sundholm.

Together, they hit upon the idea of donating the soccer balls. “It seems to us like something minor, but it means so much to the kids in the villages.”

The idea was a logical fit.

Many of the students play soccer, and Salem is a community where the sport is especially popular, Poterek says. The youth group plans to send another 25 soccer balls to Sudan next month.

Most of the balls have been donated. The students were not shy in asking for help.

Group member Bekah Chin decided on her own to call the Salem Department of Parks and Recreation, which eagerly gave several balls to the cause.

The forgetfulness of one youth group member had a special impact on a girl thousands of miles away.

Cody Miles donated her equipment bag, but didn’t realize she had left a pin inside from a soccer tournament.

When Sundholm discovered the pin in Sierra Leone, he decided to give it to a girl he met last year while visiting a village where victims of polio live. “She was terribly timid,” Sundholm says. “I gave her the pin, and it meant so much to her,” he adds, recalling that the gesture helped break through the emotional distance she tries to maintain.

“Kids can make such a big difference,” Poterek says. “They want to see God’s purpose in their lives. They really have a heart to serve him.”

The soccer balls were a means by which the students could give something tangible to the children, but Poterek says the group also is committed to helping fund PCP.

The students already have raised $400. They plan to invite friends to an upcoming party and ask for a five-dollar donation.

Trinity Covenant Church is located at 5020 Liberty Road S. If you would like to help call the church at 503-581-5675.

Source: covchurch.org