Giving back by way of the beautiful game: Perry Panthers donate soccer equipment to Jamaican youth center

Perry High School senior Ella Rose Rigdon was on a mission trip to Oracabessa, Jamaica this past summer when she noticed some children playing what looked like soccer. Indeed it was a soccer game, a universal point of interest amongst athletes all over the world as the most popular sport, but the differences in what the children at the Spicy Grove Youth Center were playing with in Jamaica and what Rigdon saw when she watched the Panthers practice and play in Perry were light years apart. For now.

“While I was in Jamaica I noticed that children have to learn to grow up faster than in America just because of the harsh circumstances that they were born in,” said Rigdon. “Playing soccer is one thing that all of the kids participated in for fun. Playing soccer is like an escape from all of life’s hardships and a chance to just be a kid for a while.”

Oracabessa is a small village near St. Mary Jamaica, east of the popular vacation/resort destination Ocho Rios. With a population just above 4,000, there is little if any decent sports equipment to go around until now.

“[Ella] wanted to see if there was any way that the team could help since the kids she saw in Jamaica loved soccer so much,” said Perry High School varsity soccer coach Nathan Dooley. “She asked if there was anything I could do to help. I talked to our our booster club and we got things going.”

“We are fortunate enough to live in a country where we pay a game we love,” says Rigdon, “being able to share some the love of God to people outside of our community, but also humbles our hearts in knowing that there’s always a way you can serve someone else.”

Days later members of the Perry Panthers soccer team were getting together used soccer balls, jerseys, cleats, bags and the like, to donate to the children at the mission in Jamaica. “The boys have been bringing in old equipment and balls to send,” said Dooley.

A picture of some of the stuff being prepared to sent off on Friday afternoon made a couple of rounds on social media and now is becoming a mission of Dooley and his soccer team. “What you saw is just a fraction of what we are trying to get together,” says Dooley who credits Rigdon for giving his players a great movement to get behind. “I am trying to teach my boys about servant leadership and this is one small way that we can help someone in need.”

The soccer season may not start for a couple months but by the looks of things the Perry Panthers are already in first place in regards to giving back via the beautiful game.

For the next two weeks, donations, both new and gently used, can be brought to the Perry High School front office and left in Dooley’s name.