Aztecas Youth Soccer Club
Todd Guild, Editor The Pajaronian
Hello, Pajaronian readers! The man who founded Antioch College—where I graduated many years ago—had a saying he hoped would be a guiding tenet for all future graduates: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
It’s a weighty order, a clarion call that should inspire everyone, at the very least, to think of their communities as they live their lives and build their careers.
When I covered the ribbon cutting ceremony for Aztecas Youth Soccer Club’s new headquarters—and spoke with founder Gina Castañeda—I knew we had found someone who has lived up to Mann’s weighty creed.
Castañeda, who works as a probation officer—often with young people tangled up in the justice system—says she wanted to offer a “pro-social” activity that kept them out of trouble. That activity was soccer.
Often, this has meant teaching rival gang members to set aside their differences to work together on the field.
What has since developed is a place where young people can come for camaraderie and acceptance, to receive clothes, shoes and soccer gear when needed. Better still, the academic encouragement they receive has boosted participants’ graduation rates from near zero to 98%.
Everyone should look to Aztecas as a model for how nonprofits should be, and how everyone should be a part of their community.
We also covered Graniterock’s annual Algebra Academy, a program that offers summertime math enrichment for middle school students to give them a running start on advanced math classes.
