By Donna Cornelius
In soccer, an unlikely kick that shoots the ball into the goal is a thrilling sight.
No less exciting is the unexpected connection between a group of Over the Mountain soccer supporters and some inner city kids who needed a helping hand.
Members of the Alabama Women’s Soccer Foundation have reached out to the NorthStar Soccer Club, an organization that strives to give urban young people a spiritual and physical boost through soccer.
Ray Lewis, one of AWSF’s founders, said his group was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1999.
“At that time, boys’ soccer was becoming popular, but girls’ soccer played second fiddle with practice times, field use and that kind of thing,” he said. “Three of us guys had daughters who played, and we needed a way to promote our girls and to promote girls’ soccer and educate people about it.”
AWSF built several fields and started a thrift shop to help finance them.
“We wanted to pay off our debt and do ministry work, too,” said Lewis. The group supported several good causes, including an orphanage in the Dominican Republic and Birmingham’s Lovelady Center, a residential facility for women in need of shelter and rehabilitation.
“But our real desire was to tie girls’ soccer in with helping kids in the inner city,” he said. “This was a faith-based effort by Christian men and women.”
That’s when, said Lewis, “the Lord dropped Val into our laps.”
Val is 23-year-old Val Kikkert, a recent Samford University graduate who played on the SU soccer team. The Atlanta native first got involved with NorthStar as a student.
“Our assistant coach wanted us to give back to the community as a team,” Kikkert said. “We volunteered at NorthStar.”
The soccer club, she explained, is a branch of NorthStar Youth Ministries, which also runs after-school programs and a Bible-based day camp for urban children.
NorthStar director Paul Neville saw a chance to expand the soccer program when it received a grant from the disbanding Mid-State Soccer League.
“Paul wanted to do something with the grant that he could sustain,” said Kikkert. “He decided to hire someone to oversee the soccer program.
“When Paul approached me, my initial reaction was ‘no.’ My goal had been to go overseas to do mission work, but I felt God pull me away from that.
“My background matched (the newly-created position). I had a love for kids and experience with kids from working at sports camp. I had a love for soccer, a love for Christ and a relationship with God.
“And at Samford, I was a journalism major with a public relations concentration and a business minor, so I’d learned about social media, marketing, writing and promotion.”
The NorthStar club had about 50 to 60 participants when Kikkert came on board last August.
“In the spring 2010 season, we had about 120 to 130 kids,” she said.
Kikkert said that support from the AWSF has been invaluable.
“Words can’t express how grateful we are,” she said. “This gives me confidence that God is at work in the inner city of Birmingham.
“And it means more to me that a bank account that they’re prayerfully supporting me.”
Isabelle’s, the AWSF thrift store, provides money for NorthStar. Originally housed in a “dark little place behind Burlington Coat Factory with no sign, no nothing,” said Lewis, the shop is thriving in its new quarters in the Plaza at Riverchase, on U.S. 31 near Hobby Lobby.
“We’re just a bunch of Over the Mountain people who were really blessed and who had a desire to do something like this,” Lewis said. “It’s not our money but God’s money. We’re just a conduit.
“We’re doing something for His glory that He planned all along.”
For more information about the NorthStar Soccer Club, visit www.northstaryouthministries.org or contact Val Kikkert at 322-9296 or HYPERLINK “mailto:[email protected]” [email protected]. The program welcomes help through the donation of gently-used soccer gear and team or player sponsorships.
