Dan, an accomplished soccer player, was injured this spring and forced to have surgery.  Wanting to remain close to his team he refocused his love of soccer to help others. Along with his dad, Bill they organized a collection with their home club the Soccers at Olympic Field in Schaumburg. The sent out a few email blasts to teamates and club members and maned the collection booth for 4 hours.

Their efforts produced 100 balls and well over 100 pairs of soccer shoes!

Thank you Dan for your hard work. Continued success to you and your U-13 teammates. Special thanks to Bella who jumped in to help and all the other U-13 players for jumping in and helping wash and deflate the balls. You can be on my team anytime!

Our friend Bari, who has been working 80 hours a week teaching, decided she wasn’t quite busy enough attending grad school. So she got involved in an after school program and helped launch a girls’ basketball league. We were able to give a basketball to every player. Many girls in the league had never even held a basketball before! We also sent balls to Lakeland Recreation, Lakeland Middle School and Lakeland Elementary School. Thanks again, Bari, for getting Rebound basketballs into eager hands.

The Naperville Park District has graciously organized a collection with the help of their massive park district soccer program. Coaches and players thank you for your support! Collection barrels will be placed at the Player’s Indoor Sports Center located at
1740 Quincy Avenue, Naperville, IL.

The barrels will be available until November 20.

A shout out to Sue, Brock and Sameera and the Player’s Indoor Sports Center. What a great facility!

Natalie of Woodhaven Lakes organized a collection with all the folks in this resort community. As Recreational Manager, Natalie appreciates the importance of being active. They started slowly, but in a few weeks Woodhaven collected a few barrels of balls. No matter how long it takes, collecting balls and passing them along to eager kids is always a better alternative to letting them end up in a trash heap.

The Woodaven balls are now washed and ready to go. Thanks to Natalie and her patience and determination!

We got a call from Allison from The Sugar Grove Park District. She had a station wagon full of baseball equipment to donate, and we happily took it in. It wasn’t until October that I understood just how badly we needed that equipment. That’s when we heard from our dear friend Jody, whose daughter Carly has been hand-carrying balls to the garbage dump village of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where she volunteers. Jody has another daughter, Bari, who is teaching in East Baltimore. This is one amazing family. With Bari’s help, we are in the process of distributing 250 basketballs and all the baseball equipment from Sugar Grove to kids in 24 East Baltimore schools. Along with Playworks and Holy Fields, our donation will help a school named after Babe Ruth that doesn’t have enough funding to supply any sports equipment. In a small way, we’re helping them live up to their namesake.

We met Steve from the Rotary Club in Pontiac, Illinois. His organization was partnering with Life Song For Orphans. We donated some soccer balls and basketballs to Steve, who placed them on a container going to Zambia. Steve hopes to meet the shipment when it arrives in February.

We received a call from Fred at Naperville Park District. Fred had a lot of baseball equipment to donate. We tipped the scales at about 700 pounds’ worth of baseball bats, helmets, t-shirts, hats and catcher’s equipment. Great stuff, but I had no idea where to ship it all. With the help of Bill, of House of Doolittle Press, and my buddy Jim, of Tape, Etc., we picked up, sorted and stored the sizable donation. What was especially exciting about this donation is that with the help of my recently posted Facebook page and my network of fans, we were able to identify a great organization that specialized in helping kids in the Dominican Republic through baseball. (Way to go Kelly!) Within a few hours of posting a message I was talking to Ben at I Love Baseball.org, and together we arranged the shipment. By the end of summer, the baseball equipment was on its way to the Dominican Republic via Seattle.

Our best friend Skip at MotoDiscovery continues to distribute balls on his motorcycle tours throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Skip continues to be a great partner despite the challenges facing his tourism business. If you are seeking some adventure in your life and really want to experience Mexico, be sure to look into Moto Discovery. Maybe you can help distribute some balls this spring!

In late February, Leanne and Tom from the Soccers F.C. in Palatine contacted me and offered to do a collection on our behalf. The soccer balls we collected, which were of the highest quality, arrived in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, in late August. These balls were shipped with the help of our friend Ron and his associates at the American Friends of Kenya. http://www.afkinc.org/

In 2007 when I was thinking through the logistics for Rebound, I met Catriona, an Australian businesswoman living in Puerto Morelos, Mexico, who devotes much of her time and talents to the children and the schools in the area. This tiny village, whose inhabitants live well below the poverty line, is located just south of Cancun. In February 2009, my wife Betty and I hand-carried about 80 soccer ball to Puerto Morelos. With Catriona’s help we divided and distributed the balls to two schools.