Hi Guys!!! This month was all about strengthening the RUFC team. To start, we held our first Ray United Leadership Council meeting. I am really excited about all the great ideas and feedback we got from our friends and supporters. The main topic of our meeting was the mission and vision for RUFC. We all agreed that the core activity for RUFC should remain our awesome health and soccer camp. We also discussed whether or not wanted to remain focused on Mpigi, Uganda. While there is sometimes pressure to move to other communities and countries, we decided not to leave Uganda or Mpigi. We need to continue supporting the people we know and love and deepen our impact in the community over the long-term. As far as how to make the camps better, we decided we needed to start funding sustainable health and nutrition based structures. For example, we agreed that it would be a good idea to teach the students and teachers how to keep a sustainable garden at the school. This would help bring nutritional value to the program, as many children simply gnaw at sugar cane to keep their hunger at bay. Another idea is to fund a nutrition/health teacher to maintain a steady flow of lessons and structure instead of just teaching them during the camp and leaving. Overall, the meeting was great team building experience. Some of the best advice I got during the meeting was to follow the advice of David Sivers – to refrain from thinking or speaking of ‘I’ and learn the importance of the first follower to start a movement .
Another area of teambuilding has been the establishment of the LCHS 7/8 RUFC club! We’ve held our first two meetings already and our club has gotten to work – our clothing drive was a great example of that. We had so many helpful students move the bags (multiple times). Club members also helped weigh the bags and sell t-shirts and jewelry during the textile drive. Between the clothes and the additional donations, we raised $1,700 dollars this weekend. The club is now planning more events – including a Walk-To-School on May 5. One of our main goals as a club is the expose LCHS 7/8 students to the reality kids face outside of the La Canada bubble (#beyondthebubble). The walk aims to help raise awareness about the many kids all around the world, including in Mpigi, who must walk hours to attend school.
Finally, the RUFC textile drive would have been only half as successful if it wasn’t for the team of families at Competitive Edge Charter Academy (CECA) in Yucaipa, California. The first grade classrooms organized their ‘Friday Families’ to support RUFC. In the end the school raised 1,700 lbs of textiles and donated over $500! Amazing job CECA!
In the end, RUFC is just like soccer, to win you need an entire team fighting for victory. RUFC is a team committed to winning the game of life!!
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