Kicking Goals For A Cause: Visions Makes Finals In Street Soccer USA Cup!

Visions In Education continues its advocacy in its communities as students and staff participated in Street Soccer USA’s 4th Anniversary Cup in Sacramento at Union Pacific Park, an event Visions helped sponsor this year.

Street Soccer USA provides an alternative to the “pay-to-play” model of youth soccer while funds raised at each event support Street Soccer USA’s social mission of fighting poverty and strengthening communities using soccer in the city in which the event takes place.

Street Soccer USA has been recognized for its humanitarian efforts by organizations such as ESPN for their partnership with UNIQLO and they host the annual Homeless World Cup. This organization has chapters in many cities, and Lisa Wrightsman leads the charge in Sacramento. Lisa and Superintendent Olmos met while participating in the American Leadership Forum and realized Visions and her chapter had similar goals: supporting young people.

Visions Futbolistas

When Visions announced the chance for student teams to participate, 16 students, some from our Soccer Club, answered the call to form two teams (U-13 and U-16) who were excited to showcase their soccer skills. The U-13 Co-Ed team included: Zach Z., Nahum P., Damir K., James E., Priscella C., Alexia M., Emalee H., and Noris E. The U-16 Co-Ed team included: Nahum P., Madi F., Sam K., Harmony W., Marcos G., Jesiah J., Tatyana B., Eloise V., and Musaddiqah I. Our students did an amazing job in their respective divisions and Visions’ U-13 Team won their tournament! 

Visions also fielded a co-ed staff team led by Soccer Club Coach Kyle Novak to compete against teams from other local businesses. Our school’s staff team made an appearance in the finals and took second place! Congratulations to our soccer stars: Cristina Buss, Spencer Summerhays, Alexander Butterfield, Axel Funes, Gabriella Slaughter, Chad Smith, Manuel Garcia, Uriel Gonzalez and Valerie Washburn!

Spencer Summerhays, Business Analyst and player, spoke about his experience participating, “The Co-Ed Corporate Cup with Street Soccer USA was an amazing experience to be a part of. It was a high-octane tournament, full of great competition against other local companies like SMUD.”

“Visions has a lot of talented soccer players among our staff,” said Spencer. “We all left grateful to be exposed to the Sacramento street soccer scene and itching to play together again.” 

Thank you to our student and staff teams for representing Visions on the pitch for a great cause! Special thanks to Coach Kyle Novak for guiding both our staff and student teams and for helping organize this awesome day.

Read here about how Kyle is connecting with students through school and sports!

Events like these are great for fostering team bonding and collaboration between staff and students. Superintendent Steve Olmos, Senior Director of Instruction Jennifer Morrison, Director of Student Services Matthew Patterson and Associate Director of Equity and Student Engagement Ron Thomas were cheering for our teams in the crowd along with friends and family. This event provided the opportunity to showcase how our Visionaries collaborate effectively to achieve their (soccer) goals!

See more photos in our photo gallery below! For the full gallery visit our Facebook page.