Rockville Centre Soccer Club sends soccer supplies to Yap Island in Micronesia

The Rockville Centre Soccer Club has partnered with DHL Express to ship and distribute new and gently used children’s soccer equipment to youth on Yap Island, in the Federation of Micronesia.

Dozens of soccer balls, cleats, discs/cones, clothing, and more were collected following a free Kids Teaching Kids soccer clinic on July 26, which will be delivered via DHL to impoverished Yapese children so they can play soccer.

DHL Express, an international logistics and delivery service provider, previously partnered with the village soccer club in 2017, shipping equipment to kids in Tanzania, Africa.

“They needed soccer supplies,” Chris Anderson, a board member of the soccer club and dealer principal at Crown Ford in Lynbrook,  said. “And we made an effort to donate.”

Inspired by the display of generosity, Julie Maher, a Yap Island schoolteacher who grew up in Rockville Centre and took part in a Kids Helping Kids soccer clinic herself, contacted the organization in the hope of doing something similar for her students halfway around the world.

“I was one of the assistant coaches at the school” on Yap Island, Maher said, “and I realized there was a need for equipment. I know how much gear is in Rockville Centre, and how many resources, and how many people love soccer, but when kids go to college, their soccer gear gets left behind, or they grow out of their old things, and sometimes that stuff doesn’t get used. And how great would it be if it could get utilized in Yap, where I know these kids would love it?”

The soccer club, she said, was extremely generous, and responded quickly to ship new gear to the school in Yap.

But, as Anderson pointed out, “Yap Island in Micronesia is very far away, and it costs a lot of money to send a box over.” He said that because the island has a post office box, the club initially attempted to ship 15 balls and supplies via the U.S. Postal Service, which ended up costing nearly $400, and required the package to be routed through Ohio, California, Hawaii, Australia and Indonesia before it arrived on Yap Island.

To help with the cost of shipping larger quantities of new and gently used soccer equipment to the Pacific island, the soccer club contacted the corporate offices of DHL Express.

Pawel Zagaja, senior director of DHL Express at JFK Gateway, said that after he spoke with Maher and Anderson, the company volunteered to help ship up to 225 pounds of soccer equipment to Micronesia.

“We are happy to assist this great cause,” Zagaja said. “DHL is huge on social responsibility — to act locally and think globally. Our purpose is to connect people and help improve the lives of all of our customers.”

Maher said that because students in Yap don’t have the same access to equipment, soccer isn’t as popular there as it is in other parts of the world. “Soccer is definitely not as big there as a lot of Long Island and the Northeast,” she said, “but there is a need for equipment, a need for soccer balls, and the things we take for granted all the time in Rockville Centre with what we have access to. That’s why when I was thinking of the next year and the next season … (I wanted to see), is there a way we can get more gear to Yap and to students there, and hopefully grow the interest in soccer.”

She said that sports had a profound impact on Maher when she was growing up, she said. She played for the junior varsity soccer team at Kellenberg Memorial High School, and also played lacrosse.

“I wasn’t amazing, but I still loved it,” she said. “It helped me make friends and it gave me confidence in some ways, which was part of why I chose to be one of the assistant coaches when I was in Yap, because I liked it so much, and it’s been positive for me.”