Story
RePlay was inspired by my love of soccer and my experience volunteering in South Africa with Fresh Start, an organization with a vision to empower children to create a better future for themselves and make a fresh start in life. My time spent with the children of Fresh Start impacted me in unforgettable ways. I was touched by their infectious smiles, curiosity for life, and happiness from the simplest moments. Participating in a multi-cultural post-apartheid collaboration, demonstrated the capacity people have to work together and develop mutual understanding.
This cross-cultural experience with Fresh Start along with a five month family trip around the world left me with a deeper perspective of global understanding and the impact giving can have on individuals and communities. I was moved by a desire to make a positive difference in the world, although at the time I didn’t know what that was.
A year after returning from my trip, and back into the routine of playing soccer, I discovered a significant amount of forgotten soccer gear that had been piling up for years in my closet. I felt an immediate interest in wanting to donate this gear to the children I met at Fresh Start. I figured I wasn’t the only player with extra gear lying around. In fact, there are three million youth soccer players in the U.S. alone - that’s a lot of potential soccer gear that could be donated. This sparked the idea to reach out to other soccer families within my community and gather gear that would otherwise go unused. I collected over one hundred items of soccer gear, which I then laundered and sorted to be donated to the children of Fresh Start. This was the beginning of RePlay.
RePlay will equip young athletes with the tools to gather gear and donate it to other young athletes around the world. In turn both the giver and receiver will be provided a storytelling platform to develop cross-cultural relationships and to nurture a deeper understanding of one another through the shared love of sport.
- Macy Gilroy
