The Salvation Army and U.S. Soccer Foundation have launched a national collaboration that will be focused on serving children in underprivileged communities.
Through this partnership, The Salvation Army will integrate U.S. Soccer Foundation resources and soccer programming into community centers, corps, and after-school initiatives nationwide. The evidence-based programs will promote teamwork, leadership, and respect, helping young people succeed both on and off the field.
This is a new partnership— U.S. Soccer Foundation has only previously worked with local Salvation Army chapters in the past.
U.S. Soccer told me it is still working on what the partnership will look like programmatically, including how many youth athletes and families will be impacted and how the initiative will work nationwide.
But the basic numbers we do have — the Salvation Army served close to 28M people in the U.S. last year and has over 7K physical locations nationwide — suggest this partnership could have a major long-term impact on youth soccer in America.
There has been so much talk during the run-up to the World Cup about the long tail of the event’s impact and the need to create soccer opportunities outside the pay-to-play ecosystem. Working with the Salvation Army gives U.S. Soccer a chance to make significant strides on that front at immense scale.
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