NHTI women’s soccer coach Heidi Crockett believes in creating fond memories and imparting life lessons.
That’s especially true for the young women on her team; for them, NHTI is only the start of the rest of their lives. Crockett wants that start to be great, and for six years, she’s worked to organize a soccer and community service trip to Costa Rica with her team.
“I use sports to teach kids about life. And so, when I can add a trip to Costa Rica into the mix, it makes it more fun for the kids and more memorable,” Coach Crockett said.
The team will hold a clothing drive at the NHTI soccer fields on Saturday to fundraise for their soccer trip and benefit the Epilepsy Foundation New England. Their aim is to collect 1,000 bags of clothing.
Just fundraising for the trip was not enough for Crockett. She wanted a way to give back to others locally through this effort and turn it into something even more impactful.
To organize the clothing drive, Crockett connected with Bethany Chase-Reynolds, community partnership manager for the Epilepsy Foundation’s donation center and the mother of a former NHTI player.
In her eyes, the drive will be a win-win situation for everybody: The clothes won’t go to waste in landfills, and they’ll raise funds for the soccer team’s trip, help to turn the Epilepsy Foundation’s research into cures and support the organization’s youth initiatives.
Chase-Reynolds explained that the donations received help the foundation provide its yearly summer camp for children with epilepsy. These camps give kids an opportunity to experience camp in a safe environment, where they won’t be judged and where they can connect with peers like them.
“They can’t go to regular camps that kids go to. They can’t do the things that a lot of their peers do for safety reasons. They take medication,” she said. “There’s a lot of things that go along with having epilepsy or seizure disorders that sometimes people don’t realize.”
Neither NHTI nor the Epilepsy Foundation is asking for monetary donations. Just old clothes.
“Everyone has clothes. Everyone has that pile of ‘I’ll fit into it someday’ or ‘just in case I need this,’ and we really know that we’re never going to wear it,” Chase-Reynolds added.
Once the drive is over and the team has raised sufficient funds for its trip, it plans to play at least two matches against local club and collegiate teams in Costa Rica and set up soccer camps for young players in the country.
Players have rallied behind the initiative and begun gathering bags of their own clothes to donate. Even Coach Crockett has bagged up some of her own stuff.
“The kids also have to come up with some of it themselves, which I also turn into a life skill thing, because you don’t get something for nothing. So for them to have to go out and fundraise on their own and to actually work, they’ve all worked all summer,” Crockett said.
Crockett’s team will hold its clothing drive from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the NHTI soccer fields on Saturday, Aug. 23.
