On August 30, 2017, the Beechcroft boy's high school soccer team showed up at our school for a regular season match. When they piled off the bus and made their way to the sidelines, my brother and I anticipated an evening game like many others we had played.

As usual, the JV team was up first. When they took the field for the match, we thought something was wrong. None of the guys had jerseys. They wore mismatched t-shirts and old practice pinnies. A few of them had no cleats. We were stunned.

Our school has great kits (jerseys and shorts) that we wear with pride. Like most schools, we have home and away kits. Every year all the players look forward to that day when we get our kits for the first time. Most of us have our pictures taken as we put on those school colors for the first time, which is why we were so humbled when we saw a team that didn't have jerseys at all.

We played a very tightly contested match that night and played them again in the tournament at the end of the season, further growing the rivalry between us. While we may battle on the soccer pitch, we feel we need to come together off of it.

That's why we are asking you to join us in raising funds to help buy equipment and shirts for the Beechcroft boy's soccer program. They should enjoy the same sense of pride in putting their school colors on and properly representing their program as so many of us are so fortunate to do.

Thank you so much for joining us in this effort. 

Alex and Matt Schertzer