History

January 15, 2023 by Alejandro Henao

Soccer, Colombia, USA, children

I remember vividly the first time I delivered a pair of soccer cleats to a couple of kids in Colombia. Around 2013, in one of the visits from the USA to Colombia, my parents had picked me up from the airport in Cali, Colombia; and as we were driving south, I saw a couple of kids playing soccer on the streets. I told my dad to park, reached out for one of the bags where I knew I had the soccer cleats, and got out of the car. I approached the kids, asked their names and hand-delivered the cleats to them. The smiles, excitement and gratitude meant everything . I can see their joy as they put them on and continue with their soccer game on the streets.

I grow in Colombia and play soccer in all environments. While my siblings and I always have what we needed - love, support, food, shelter, safety, health, education, sports, clothes, a trip here and there - we were never spoiled with the newest or fanciest shoes or cleats. In fact, I remember only getting a few pair of soccer cleats throughout my whole childhood (averaging a new one every two years). If for a child like me in a family that had everything needed getting a new pair of cleats was rare, now you can guess that for the majority of children in Colombia having a pair of good cleats is almost impossible.

After migrating to the USA and having my boys - Tomas in 2006 and Andres in 2009 - I continued to pass the love for the beautiful game by watching and playing soccer with them, similar to how my dad did it with us. As a contrast of my childhood, my boys were getting soccer cleats very often as their feet grow super fast. The question then was: What to do with their previous soccer cleats (which most likely were still in great shape) after getting new ones? The typical option is to donate them to goodwill, resell them, or thrown them in the trash.

My mind went to my childhood and the million of children in Colombia that could bring a smile on them and benefit from this. I decided to clean the cleats, save them, and take them in the next trip to Colombia, which was what I did in 2013. As the years passed, we started collecting cleats from friends, teammates, and acquaintances that love the idea. Many of them commented on how unique, beautiful and helpful this gesture was. All of this gave more power and fire to the idea, despite some headaches along some trips (lost bags, customs, additional cost). The most beautiful reward is to see first-hands the joy and impact that a simple gesture can create in the life of many kids in Colombia. With the gift of donating, we are helping, we are learning, we are making connections, we are gaining knowledge, we are creating a cultural exchange.

Normally, as I had extra room in the luggage in the way back from Colombia to the USA, I would bring lots of Colombian coffee for personal consumption and presents to family and friends. As a Colombia, I feel immensely proud of our coffee and another way to connect the countries and cultures.

As other friends and people learned about the project throughout the years, it continues to grow in number of cleats being donated; and we continue to learn about different communities, and many more children and soccer clubs needing help in Colombia. People have offered monetary contributions in the past to help with the cause but I did not accept any money until I decided to start a non-profit. 2022 was the year I decided to make the jump from doing this on my own for every trip I did to Colombia to established a non-profit foundation. The initial idea was to raise some funds to deliver more cleats and more often from the USA to Colombia but with the help and vision from the board of directors, we are going to do much more than deliver soccer cleats; we are going to help tons of children and communities, we are going to empower them by given them resources and what we can provide to give them hope and help turn their dreams into reality.