Hello Rush membership,

I would like take a moment tobriefly introduce the REACH program, a Rush program that I am very passionateabout. REACH (Rush Equipment Assisting Children) is designed to share love andcompassion with marginalized youth in third world countries by providing youthsoccer clubs, schools, and villages with soccer uniforms and equipment.  Furthermore, REACH strives to be advocates ofcommunity development by enriching the lives of youth through service, soccer,and education.

REACH History

Over the past few years, Rush hasdelivered tens of thousands of pieces of equipment to countries like Iraq,Afghanistan, South Africa, Mexico, Thailand, etc. Future sites include Mali, Ghana,Kenya, and Haiti.

REACH Partners

The REACH program has been featuredon CBS, ABC and Good Morning America.General David Petraeus of the United States Army has personally sharedwith the Rush the Army’s desire for the REACH program to continue.   General Petraeus values the humanitarianaspect as well as the fact that the negative stigma diminishes when the U.S. troops areviewed as gift givers in conflict territories. Other partners include America One(foundation of musician and humanitarian Bono) Eurosport, TRIAD and more.

What’s Next?

While the REACH program has beenvery successful to date, it is still being under-utilized. With such a largemembership, Rush Soccer has a responsibility to use our numbers to spread thisprogram to all of our Rush partners. With the full support of Rush clubs acrossthe nation, there is no end to the amount of good we can do for the lessfortunate.  Inthe past few months, Rush has taken a more proactive approach and has requestedfor each Rush partner club to have a representative to serve as REACH VolunteerCoordinator or RVC.  The RVC’s will becollecting equipment within your community and eventually ship the collectionto a site in the U.S. for inventory and then, Rush headquarters, one more timewill ship to communities in need with-in the United States and Abroad. 

Iwould like to thank the following individuals for stepping in to the RVC rolefor their respective clubs.

AK-GraceDinneen

AR-Matt Mittelstaedt

AZ-ChristineSanchez 

S-CA-EvaCornejo

CO-DonnaPettigrew

COPP-Jack Pfister, Polly Fiedler, Michele Sample

FL-NancyBabin

GA-BarbaraHalbert

HI-DaniRuiz

IA-AhmedAgyeman

ID-SageRogers

KY-TylerKing

KS-CarolCleek

MI-Mike Hatfield

NM-DamonLucero

OR-MichelleBuzzas

PA-KellyHorst

TN-KellyClack

TX-CindyPonton

UT-ChuckMiller

WA-SandyBaker

VA-TomBojanowski, Steve O'Neil

Rush is in the initial stages of launching its most grandiose undertaking to datewith the REACH program. RVC’s will pass along information on this project soon.

                                                                                Thank you.

                                                                                Go Rush!

                                                                                Tim Schulz

                                                                                Rush President & C.E.O