Women’s Soccer: Women’s Soccer Partners with Universal Promise



GETTYSBURG, Pa. – The Gettysburg College women’s soccer team is partnering with a non-profit called Universal Promise to build a playground for 500 children in rural South Africa.

For over six years, the Bullets have been involved with the Universal Promise, a non-profit organization started in 2011 by Martha Cummings, an alumna of Bryn Mawr College. During those years, the Bullets have donated uniforms, soccer balls, warmups, shoes, and other equipment to the girls, boys, women, and men to wear for netball and soccer tournaments in South Africa.

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“I passionately believe in giving back,” said head coach Matt Garrett. “Specifically to a game that has given me, and the team, so much in our lives.

In 2021, the Bullets joined forces with Cummings to help raise money to build a brand new playground for the children at St. Ignatius Primary School in South Africa. The hope is to include a major playground apparatus, a climbing bridge and wall of tires, a balance area, two slides, a seesaw, a miniature field and goals, a miniature netball court, a pergola to protect the children from the sun, and picnic tables. Gettysburg’s goal is to raise $20,000.

To help with the fundraising efforts, the Bullets are selling t-shirts and bracelets at all the home sporting events and in the College Union Building on campus. The price for a t-shirt is $20, $10 for a bracelet, or you can combine one of each item for $25. If you would like to purchase one or both items but are unable to do it in person, please email Coach Garrett at mgarrett@gettysburg.edu. In addition, the team is also doing a 5K on April 24 on campus, with a time to be determined. All the proceeds will go directly to Universal Promise. 

Senior Paige Merz (Kensington, Md./St. John’s College), junior Grace Slevin (Virginia Beach, Va./Frank W. Cox), and sophomore Jayne McGrath (Lawrenceville, N.J./The Pennington School) are spearheading this program project for the Bullets with their eyes set on being able to take a team trip down to South Africa in the future. 

Universal Promise’s stated mission is to “provide individuals and institutions in underserved regions with the academic resources needed to ensure educational and career opportunities that will promote just, civil, and hopeful societies.”

“Being a head coach of the Gettysburg women’s soccer program and father to two daughters, it is an important message to me to promote female equality, strength, and independence through soccer,” said Garrett. “Everyone in the world should be given an equal opportunity in life.”

If you would like to donate, please click here.

 

This story was originally posted on the Gettysburg College Website.

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