PLH Summer Kick Off Event in Stayton, OR

On June 23rd and 24th, PLH hosted its second annual Summer Kick Off sports camp in Stayton Oregon. Sixty kids from the community came out to participate in basketball, soccer, and volleyball training. The seven volunteer coaches from the community did a great job and the kids enjoyed learning about the game, improving their skills, and playing scrimmages at the end of the day. 

To close out the Summer Kick Off event, kids and adults from the community participated in a fun run on Saturday, June 25th. Many of the kids from the camp came out with their parents and many others from the community joined in. A total of fifty runners participated in the trail run through the Stayton Middle School Nature Trail. Congratulations to Tyler Franklin, the overall winner of the 5k race! 

The goal of the sports camp and fun run is to provide a fun experience for kids and families in our local community and to spread the word of the work PLH is doing in Haiti. PLH believes that sports and opportunities to play and learn are hugely influential in the lives of young people. This is why one of PLH’s four areas of focus is athletics. 

Thanks to generous sponsors and the registration fees of participants that paid it forward, the Summer Kick Off raised $1,500 to go towards the PLH summer kids programs in Haiti! This July and August, the PLH Haiti staff is organizing 8 weeks of soccer tournaments, English classes, artisan classes, soap making classes and more for kids and youth in the Camp Marie community. These programs will provide kids with a safe place to come play, learn and grow this summer. Stay tuned for updates later this summer!

PLH Summer Kick Off

By Sarah Comstock

Project Living Hope’s mission is to empower Haitians to build a stronger Haiti, so why run a sports camp in Stayton and a fun run in Sublimity? Really, it is all about engaging with our community. Not everyone is able to travel with us to Haiti, but we hope all our Champions can engage with the mission of PLH.  One of PLH’s focus areas is athletics. Through athletics we offer children and youth a safe environment where they can play, grow, and be trained holistically in their faith, sport, and future. In the United States we often take for granted the opportunity for our children to participate in athletic programs. But, in Haiti, children typically do not have those same opportunities. Extracurricular activities are a luxury that few can afford, which means many children and adolescents fall prey to gangs or other harmful choices.

This past year has taught us all in the US to stop taking these opportunities for granted as well. So, when PLH started to see that there may be an opening in our hometown to engage the community, we decided to offer a sports camp for local kids, like we do in Haiti. For three days, June 23rd to the 25th we had over 120 kids out to the Foothills Church camp for 3 and a half hours of sports and fun! Kids were just getting out of school for the summer and we took this as an opportunity to show our home base how we work in Haiti.

Fortunately, we had a team of volunteers to help us bring this opportunity to our community. Thank you so much to Bill Pilgeram and Taylor Kelly head women’s and men’s basketball coaches from Corban, Tyler Butenscheon from Foothills and our very own Bethany Ferrigno who served as head basketball coaches for the camp! Thanks also to Jess Caze FSF Instructor from Oregon State and Jason Clark PE Teacher from Santiam Elementary School who served our local youth in our soccer program.

It was such a fun week.  We had about 80 kids in our basketball program and 40 in our soccer program.  Plus, another 30 volunteers gave of their time to help with this effort!  Each kid got to develop their skills at various stations led by leaders in the sport. They had snacks, free time and some fun doing Haitian inspired crafts. Amy Bentz our creative Communications Coordinator led the kids in crafts that helped them understand more of life in Haiti.  The soccer kids made cardboard cutout shin guards and were informed about how kids in Haiti are unable to afford nice things like store bought shin guards and soccer cleats, but they make do. The basketball kids got to make a ping-pong basketball craft that allowed them to see that kids with limited means can still do things to have fun. At the end of the week we even had special visitors from the Timbers U23 team!

We ended the Summer Kick Off camp with a fun run on Saturday, June 26th in Sublimity. About 100 community members participated in the first PLH 3K and 5K Fun Run and Walk. We took off at 9 am and it was already a record setting 80 degrees! By the time the run was done we were nearing 90 degrees in one of the hottest weekends on record in Oregon. Not surprisingly, our first-place finisher in the 5K was our very own Guesly Dessieux. Maybe the “Haitian” weather helped propel him along?

We had many sponsors and volunteers that helped make both events possible. Overall, we were able to raise about $2,000 to put on the same events in Haiti. We plan to run a sports camp like the one we ran in Stayton and will do a fun run on the road to our property. This will be our second fun run in Haiti. Ultimately our goal was connection: connecting our Oregon community with our Haitian community.  We believe this goal was accomplished. Our Stayton and Sublimity partners know more about the work in Haiti and their generosity has helped empower Haitians to build a stronger Haiti.  Thank you to all who helped make this possible!

Right now, we are running the annual Join the Community campaign. This campaign invites you to join the PLH community by becoming a monthly donor. Monthly giving fuels the programs and projects that provide hope to the community in challenging times. Just $15 a month helps to:

• Educate current and future professionals by providing English classes and other job skills programs.

• Empower youth by providing soccer and basketball programs that holistically train athletes in faith, sport, and future.

• Employ staff and construction workers with jobs to provide for their families.

• Expand the campus to better serve the community.

Thank you for your continued prayers, support, and partnership.