I was thinking the other day about Kicking4Hunger and how the concept and implementation of the Kicking4Hunger experience generates a good amount of social capital in communities. It is funny how powerful of an impact that the simple idea of Kicking4Hunger can have in communities, among our young campers, their parents, our volunteers, and those in need of our help. A simple concept helping to solve a serious, complex problem.

We spend countless hours debating about how to make the world a better place. The entire field of public policy is devoted to this battle and full consensus is rarely achieved. Out of every Kicking4Hunger event that I have ever been involved in, it seems that everyone always reaches the agreement that Kicking4Hunger is beneficial to all of us. Kicking4Hunger in action helps keep community food banks filled, it encourages our youth to play soccer and engage in healthy practices, and it brings communities together, helping generate better understanding and common purpose. That is why I think Kicking4Hunger is here for the long haul. It simply makes sense.

-Jacob, Board Chairman

Hey guys! Gideon Whaley here from the Coast Guard Academy in CT. This is the first time I have gotten to write here, so to give you guys a bit of an update, I used to be a director, and have been loving K4H since 2006. Since going to college this past June, I have not really been able to do much, but I’ve seen K4H go through many changes and am really excited to see the direction where K4H is headed.

This past weekend, I got to stay at my brother’s apartment with Jacob Yaniero and Will Stoy working on improving Kicking 4 Hunger and getting a lot of new things ready for the coming year. Since I flew in and drove up on Thursday, I’ve gotten a glimpse into how Kicking 4 Hunger has changed since 2006. Back in 2006, K4H was nothing more than a few high school friends and a goal of somehow pulling off a free soccer camp. And hopefully, through some sort of magic, we would gather canned goods to donate to the local food bank. Within the past year Kicking 4 Hunger has developed into something more than I ever imagined would be possible. To me, I always thought of K4H as my summer highlight and an awesome way to help out a bunch of people in my hometown. I never really imagined that Kicking 4 Hunger would actually move out of Midland, North Carolina, let alone get national prominence. And so it’s been really amazing to see just how much it’s grown. In the few updates I’ve gotten from Gabe over phone or e-mail while I’ve been at the Coast Guard Academy, it’s been mindboggling just how great everything has been going. This weekend I’ve really been able to see just how all of this progress has been happening.

The Situation Room is a room in Gabe’s apartment with whiteboard covered walls, charts, computers, music, and coffee. And of course, there’s a futon and comfortable chairs. This room is where the magic of K4H happens. Ideas have been flying back and forth all weekend as we’ve been throwing around whatever comes to mind to help make Kicking 4 Hunger more effective and ready for the future. We’ve been putting in surprisingly long days this weekend – if it turns out to be 4am as long, as the ideas are flowing it’s perfectly fine. And the ideas have been flowing indeed – look forward to a lot of improvements on the website over the next couple of weeks!

As a former director, it has been really surreal to see just how much Kicking 4 Hunger has grown since back in 2006 when it was started. I cannot wait to see what the future holds for this awesome organization. Hopefully in my time off I’ll be able to try and get K4H started up in Connecticut and see you guys out at camp next summer!

-Gideon Whaley

During the October voting campaign for People Magazine’s Reader’s Choice Hero of the Year, Gabe received a packet of letters from Mrs. Bidner’s 7th grade reading class of Long Branch Middle School. Their letters were moving to our organization-unique, in the sense that, these students were inspired by our mission despite the fact that we had no national outreach at the time. To show our gratitude for their support, we decided to dub them honorary campers of Kicking4Hunger 2011.

This past Monday I traveled to Long Branch, New Jersey to pay a visit to Mrs. Bidner’s class. After a brief presentation about Kicking4Hunger, we had a quick question session where the students showed some impressive intellectual curiosity regarding our camps and the direction of the organization. It was really thought provoking to hear their questions because it made me realize a lesson that is all too commonly overlooked in the process of growth: though a goal or objective is useful for aspiration, it is the path from which we learn and grow. There is no exact formula to having a successful start up or running a corporation. Everyday there is a new challenge; and, with every event that we put on, we learn something new about how to make this idea of using a global sport for a global cause work.

After questions, the students viewed a personalized video from Gabe. When he announced that they would be receiving shirts from the organization, the room lit up with excitement. This is by far the most gratifying aspect of working with Kicking4Hunger for me: seeing the smiles. There is purity in the excitement and the joy that youth possess. With youth, you have volumes of potential. Like Mrs. Bidner’s class, I hope that our mission inspires people around the nation and the world to become passionate and enable themselves and their communities to help those less fortunate. Though we have yet to host a camp outside of North Carolina, I am hoping our outreach program will make it a possibility for students like Mrs. Bidner’s class to become involved as campers and as coaches in the future.

Sincerely,

Syrena Huynh, Kicking4Hunger Treasurer

Goodness its been a long time since I’ve had the chance to sit down and blog. But I assure you that this is a good thing, because it means that Kicking4Hunger has pretty much had a non-stop flow of opportunities for the past month that I will now fill you in on!

Our clinics this Fall have been amazing. We run a weekly outreach program at the local community center for about 50 kids, and this past week Eurosport and U.S. Passback came to outfit each kid with a jacket, jersey, pair of boots, and their own soccer ball! We had another clinic a few weeks ago that raised 200 pounds of food in Durham NC, and we have a big clinic coming up this November at Campbell University where CNN will be out to document our work!

I want to thank everyone in the extended Kicking4Hunger family who helped us get named the People Magazine Reader’s Choice Hero of the Year! It is a great honor, and has opened up countless doors for us to expand our scope of outreach.

Speaking of outreach, this is the next big phase in our plan for expansion. Within themonth, we hope to launch a new outreach program where we provide the information, knowledge, and resources for anyone in the world to run a Kicking4Hunger Soccer Camp or Clinic! We have been working hard on this for months now, and we hope that it just advances us one step closer to ending hunger for good.

Things are great right now, but they are definitely about to get better =)

Until next time,

Gabe