Judge Memorial Africa Outreach Club raises funds for soccer clinics for South African children

Courtesy photo/David McMillan

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The Judge Memorial science ecology students from David McMillan's science class and the Judge Memorial African Outreach Club are raising funds for a trip to the West Coast of South Africa and Cape Town on a ecological study and humanitarian trip.

SALT LAKE CITY — The Judge Memorial Catholic High School Africa Outreach Club invites the public to a screening of the documentary "Streetball" April 9, in the school auditorium.

The Africa Outreach Club is working on a community soccer project called "Goals 4 Goals" that will provide opportunities for sporting achievements and personal development for children in Cape Town, South Africa.

"The documentary "Streetball" is about eight men from the streets of Capetown who band together to fight for their place in society through a fast-paced game of street soccer to become South Africa’s 2008 Homeless World Cup Team," said Mary Purk, whose son Connor is a member of the Africa Outreach Club. "The Homeless World Cup is an annual soccer tournament that draws teams from over 56 countries, comprised of homeless and the excluded, to the tournament."

Twenty-two students and two parents will travel to South Africa with David McMillan, Judge Memorial science teacher, and his wife, Heidi, from June 13 to July 11.

"The original purpose for the trip was to educate the science ecology students about the desert of South Africa, but it evolved into a service project with the Africa Outreach Club," said McMillan, head of the club. "They will do a 4,000-mile traverse across the West Coast of South Africa to look at some of the four desert biomes that separate Africa. We will also donate groceries to kids in the townships, but our major service project is the soccer clinics in Cape Town."

McMillan was born in South Africa. He and Heidi have done several service projects in South Africa on their visits in the past. In 2007, they headed a shoe drive among the Judge athletic teams and donated hundreds of shoes in Cape Town. Their daughter, Elli, was a junior on Judge’s track team at the time.

"The idea for this trip came in 2007 when Heidi and I met with two organizations in South Africa: Sporting Chance, run by Brad Bing, a high school friend, and My Life, the producers of "Streetball." McMillan said.

Sporting Chance is a group that offers sports coaching and outreach to South African school-age kids of all ethnic backgrounds, McMillan explained. "They do personalized training and a lot of community projects in the Black and ethnic townships," he said. "Their specialty is cricket because Brad was a cricket player, and they do a lot of activities such as neighborhood against neighborhood, street against street and end up with community finals. They also do soccer and other sport clinics. The kids participate by signing contracts with Sporting Chance to keep them from joining gangs, which are enforced by community organizers.

"This is going to be an eye-opening experience for the Judge kids," McMillan said. "The soccer fields are typically bare patches of soil in the middle of a dense cluster of houses with four garbage cans for goal posts, or they play right in the streets."

The Africa Outreach Club has committed to collecting athletic equipment and raising money to donate to Sporting Chance to further fund their clinics. "They focused on soccer as the sport they want to support," said McMillan.

Connor Purk, a freshman at Judge, is excited for the trip. "The Judge students have sold bleacher cushions, parking stalls at Judge Memorial for a University of Utah football game, and concessions," he said.

"We are raffling off a motorcycle that was donated and we will hold a garage sale at Judge on April 30," McMillan said. "There is a plethora of service projects the students are performing to raise money and awareness for this project."