Hundreds come out for DC SCORES Jamboree!, enjoy competitive soccer games and lots of activities

As the morning dew cleared and the DC SCORES staff made final field preparations, buses packed with DC SCORES poet-athletes pulled into the Trinity University parking lot. Shaking off the early morning start, students, coaches and accompanying parents and friends made their way to the soccer fields and started their pregame rituals. The beats blaring from DJ RBI’s tent got everyone pumped up for the day ahead.

To kick off the 2010 Jamboree!, the best of the elementary school Westside and Eastside teams faced off to decide the City Cup Championship. In hard-fought games, the Burrville girls, representing the Eastside, and the Westside’s Bancroft boys prevailed.

Meanwhile, on the upper fields middle school teams battled for a spot in the championship games. In the end, the Lincoln Middle School boys and Oyster-Adams Bilingual School girls came out on top.

Teams not participating in the championships games got their soccer fix, too. Each SCORES team competed in at least three soccer matches, all against teams they never saw in the regular season. At any point during the day, nine fields were occupied by SCORES students completing give-and-gos or making diving saves, as parents and friends cheered on from the sidelines.

When they weren’t playing soccer, students rotated through a number of activities. Washington Freedom players led soccer drills, a local graffiti artist displayed his talents in creating a “Leadership” piece, volunteers painted students’ faces with soccer balls, and the DC Fire Department sent over a few trucks to let the students explore. Kids also enjoyed looking at bones and other artifacts at the Celebra la Ciencia (Celebrate Science) booth and learning about the importance of maintaining healthy lungs with UDC’s 4-H program.

Students and families also checked out the service-learning posters hanging up around the fields and a service-learning tent led by Jefferson Middle School.

By the early afternoon, teams filed back onto their buses where gift bags stuffed with books, gifts and information from our sponsor The Century Council, and the new DC SCORES wristband awaited them.

“It was so much fun,” said one student as she gathered her belongings.

It was a day when students and families from all across the District came together to compete, laugh and celebrate the accomplishments of the SCORES season. Speaking for the DC SCORES staff and coaches, I would say that is the definition of fun. 

-- Written by Zach Elkin, Elementary School Coordinator