By Farrah Philpot
Two dozen kids may have taken their first step this week from Caldwell to the CPL. There were multiple layers to Atlético Ottawa’s involvement with a City of Ottawa summer camp at Carlington Recreation Centre from July 21-25, but a dream scenario would see one of the young players sporting the Canadian Premier League club’s colours one day at TD Place.
Former Atlético Ottawa player Gabriel Carvalho, who played youth soccer with Ottawa South United, was the lead coach for the training sessions throughout the week.
For a kickoff event on Monday, they were joined by current Atlético players Monty Patterson and Jonathan Grant, who was especially pleased to see the Atleti Equal Access initiative in action since he grew up in a similar low-income community himself.
“It’s kind of a full circle because this is kind of where I started out in Scarborough, back in Toronto,” highlighted Grant, a defender for the first-place club. “I think the biggest thing for the kids in this community is just keeping them occupied and busy. Obviously, things can get difficult when you don’t have that path laid out for you, so I think programs like this help you kind of create a pathway to anything you want, really.”
Soccer skills were certainly on the menu at the event, as were hotdogs served up by sponsor Maple Lodge Farms for a free community BBQ. From early conversations with Carlington leaders, Atlético also set out to help solve food insecurity in the community.
Maple Lodge, which has its logo on the front of Atlético Ottawa’s jerseys, donates 30 meals’ worth of chicken products per jersey they sell, and has now distributed over 30,000 meals less than two years into the promotion, says the club’s community development and media relations manager Thomas Stockting.
“Just to be able to be a small part in helping set this up for a community like this, it’s a pretty cool feeling,” notes Carlington Recreation Centre program coordinator Jay Young. “I hope this is just the beginning of more stuff to come with them.”
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Stockting is pleased to see the impact the budding partnership has made already, but he’s also excited to see what may bloom from it a decade from now.
“If we’re not thinking about the long term, if we’re not thinking about how to get to that next step, what are we even doing here?” he highlights.
Developing players and fans is certainly part of the objective, Stockting adds, but he believes both the Atlético brand and the community will benefit.
“These kids who are 13 and 14 years old now, and in five to 10 years are going to be young adults with part-time or full-time jobs – will they have a little bit of disposable income and will the sport and the club that’s given back to their community by caring about what they actually want and what they actually need? Will that make them more likely to engage with us?” Stockting explains.
“And if one of the kids from this local community goes on to become a professional soccer player through our system, the civic pride that’ll generate in the local area, knowing that this [program] worked for them” would be an exceptional outcome, he adds.“Do the right thing, the right way, for the right reason – things will fall into place.”
This article is part of the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Inclusion in Sport series. Read more about local sport inclusion initiatives at: OttawaSportsPages.ca/Ottawa-Sports-Pages-Inclusion-In-Sport-Series/.
