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Soccer camp holds own version of World Cup
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Canfield High School girls soccer players, left to right, Bryn Taylor, sophomore; Kelly Vinopal, junior; and Alexa Billy, junior, members of the Argentina team, coached campers throughout the soccer camp.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Tanor English (left), 11, Sam Griffith, 12, and Jad Saleh (right), 10, showed their pride to be members of the Argentina team during Word Cup Day at the Canfield High School Soccer Boosters Youth Soccer Camp.
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Members of the high school boys and girls soccer teams taught 5- and 6-year-old campers soccer skills during the Canfield High School Soccer Boosters Youth Soccer Camp.
By ABBY SLANKER
Thanks to the Canfield High School Soccer Boosters, the Soccer World Cup came to Canfield the week of June 21-25.
The boosters sponsored a youth soccer camp, with the help of Canfield High School soccer players and coaches, with a World Cup theme.
Players from both the boys and girls high school soccer teams, along with Coach Phil Simone and assistant coaches Joe Fusillo and Nikki Sorice taught approximately 70 area youth, ages 5-14, soccer skills each night.
The boosters made the camp even more fun by scheduling theme nights, including Cardinal day, crazy hat day, favorite team jersey day, Passback day and World Cup day, when groups dressed in the colors of their assigned country and played mini matches against other countries.
Canfield families and businesses donated items to be included in prize drawings on the last night of camp. The top prizes were two “World Cup” balls, which one boy and one girl from the camp won. One ball was signed by each member of the high school boys soccer team and one ball was signed by each member of the girls soccer team.
Area businesses also donated items to the camp. Canfield Dairy Queen donated Dilly Bars for each camper on the first night, Whitehouse Fruit Farm donated apples, and campers also received coupons from Cornersburg Dairy Queen and Frosty coupons from Wendy’s.
The boosters also collected new or gently used soccer equipment during the camp to send to the earthquake victims in Chile through the Passback Program. This is a charity organization which is part of Eurosport, which also donated to the soccer camp, that distributes equipment locally and internationally.
The club will also collect equipment at the high school soccer fields during the Canfield Cardinal Classic Tournament from 8 a.m. until dark July 31, after which all donations will be sent to Chile.
For more information on this collection, contact Heidi Saleh at emaly33@hotmail.com or 330-519-4195.
Upon completion of the camp, each participant received a camp T-shirt, a certificate signed by Simone and free admission to the Aug. 28 high school soccer game if they wear their camp T-shirt.