21st Annual Jamboree! puts an exclamation mark on spring DC SCORES season

Written by Jake Lloyd
Communications Manager

(View all Jamboree! photos in our Flickr and Storify albums)

The DC SCORES Jamboree! was such a big event Saturday, a team drove four hours to participate.

That's right -- the America SCORES New York team from Hamilton Grange Middle School in Harlem made the drive south to take part in the 21st edition of the culminating event of the spring DC SCORES season.

Unofficially, this marked the first time a team from one of America SCORES' 14 sites visited another city to participate in an event.  And judging from the expressions on the faces of the 50 or so Hamilton students as they played in one soccer game after another, they enjoyed the Jamboree! just as much as the 50 DC teams that congregated on the large grassy expanse at Anacostia Park.

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The day started at 5:45am as DC SCORES staff and volunteers began arriving. Why so early? Because 30 soccer goals needed to be set up and nets strung. Because dozens of tents in the booth area needed to be erected, and the supplies for each activity laid out ready for one team after another to visit (with no breaks). Because water stations needed to be placed all across the large area, and carrying or pulling huge jugs is no easy task.

Setup continued for three hours, only concluding as the elementary school City Cup championship games got underway. And as the Burrville and Marie Reed girls and Capital City and Amidon boys played exciting games, the field all around them became a sea of oranges, and whites, sky blues and dark blues, reds and greens, and blacks and grays. All of the other teams spilled across the still-wet surface, wearing their custom DC SCORES T-shirts.

Thomas, Bancroft, Hart, Tubman, Aiton, Seaton, Thomson, Miner, Brightwood, Moten, LaSalle-Backus, Imagine Hope, Orr, Raymond, Anne Beers, KIPP QUEST, H.D. Cooke -- the list goes on.

As the City Cup games concluded, Program Director Sean Hinkle huddled all the elementary schools around DJ RBI's booth, reminded everyone what soccer games are all about -- sportsmanship -- and then proceeded to point to all the teams, eliciting yells of "BARNARD!" and "TRUESDELL!" and "PAYNE!" and "LECKIE!" The list goes on.

A couple hundred yards away, former DC SCORES staff member and emcee extraordinaire for several SCORES poetry slams Charity Blackwell was doing the same kind of call-and-response for middle schools.

And then it was go time, 2,000 kids in different colored shirts dispersing and heading to the first stop of many to begin a long, exhilarating, entertaining, and fulfilling day.

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To give you a sense of everything that Jamboree! provided for its participants, here's what one school, Thomas Elementary, did during the five-hour event:

9:25 am -- The Tigers gather around a smattering of large letters on the grass under the shade of a few large trees and play "word relays." Following the prompts of Clark Construction and other volunteers, the kids spell out words and phrases related to their experience in the program.

Meanwhile the other half of the team tests their bean bag-throwing accuracy as they alternate tossing the bags into different circles and triangles 10 feet away from them.

9:50am -- Time to prepare those skills for the games! The Tigers head to their next station where a group of volunteers lead them through dribbling, heading and other soccer essential skills.

10:15am -- Game time! The Tigers in their white uniforms take on Miner in a girls game followed by a boys game. Smiles are everywhere as the kids race up and down the field.

11:05am -- Let's decorate! The Tigers head to the facepainting station, where they give orders -- their jersey number, a heart, stars, etc. -- to the incredibly artistic volunteers.

11:30am -- Looking their best, it's time for Thomas' photo shoot in front of the D.C. United banner. But not before they get autographs from pro soccer player Patrick Nyarko. After their official team photo, they celebrate by testing out their hula hooping skills while moving to DJ RBI's beats.

11:55am -- It's back to the action as the Tigers take on Marie Reed, a school from the Westside of the city that they've never played before. It's a cool feeling getting to meet and play against a team they haven't faced before.

12:45pm -- Finally, lunch! Having played two soccer games, hula hooped, and more, the Tigers devour their healthy sandwiches, fruit and veggies provided by Revolution Foods.

1:10pm -- It's arts & crafts time -- and a chance for the Tigers to digest their food -- with the awesome volunteer squad from Wells Fargo. Aided by the company's volunteers, the kids use popsicle sticks and glue to create a framed photo of the team that was taken during the DC SCORES season. A memento to take with them!

1:35pm -- Final game of the day! The Tigers take on Tubman Elementary, another Westside school from a neighborhood 6.7 miles away from their school. Jamboree! truly brings different parts of DC together.

2:25pm -- Exhausted but still wearing those smiles, the Tigers begin the long walk across the field to their bus. Sure, their day didn't include the Penya Barcelonista soccer shooting station -- test your accuracy! -- or the November Project-led relay race station where the competition was fierce but the giggles of joy frequent all day long. But overall, they had experienced a lot, closing out the spring DC SCORES season with a bang. They got to hang out with D.C. United mascot Talon. They got to check out all of the DC SCORES teams' service-learning poster boards demonstrating the impact each program made in their community. And they got to do everything else we just mentioned.

The same can be said of the other 49 sites that had programming this spring, and those kids from New York who made the trip. The middle schoolers enjoyed a nonstop action-packed soccer tournament that included three divisions -- boys, girls and co-ed -- and 57 games including championships.

The largest Jamboree! in DC SCORES history wouldn't have been possible without the hundreds of volunteers -- many of whom stayed the entire day from setup until the last scraps of trash were picked up from the field after 3pm. A huge thank you to partners D.C. United, FAAR, Wells Fargo, Clark Construction, the Goldman Sachs volunteer group, November Project DC, Penya Barcelonista, the Edmund Burke School volunteers, Revolution Foods, and of course DJ RBI.

View all Jamboree! photos in our Flickr album.

Team effort makes largest event in DC SCORES history a rousing success

Brightwood Education Campus shows off their
service-learning board at Jamboree!.

Upon reaching the edge of the expansive grassy area by the middle school co-ed soccer field, one person after another had a version of the same question Saturday afternoon.

Where can I find X school?

Where do I sign in to volunteer?

It wasn't that anything was poorly marked. Simply put, the 19th Annual DC SCORES Jamboree! was so big that if you stood by the middle school soccer fields at one end of Anacostia Park, the blue tents for registration, the DJ, lunch and activity booths seemed a mile away.

Between them were 16 soccer fields, which hosted game after game beginning with the City Cup championships at 8am and not ending until Cardozo defeated Kelly Miller on penalty kicks in the co-ed title game after 3pm.

In all, 178 soccer games were played during seven hours. Think about that for a moment -- 178!! To keep all the teams hydrated, DrinkMore Water made a very generous donation of 70 bottles!

And soccer was just one aspect of the action-packed day. Buoyed by an incredibly energetic and flexible band of 136 volunteers -- including 25 program alumni -- and partners including Revolution Foods, 826 DC, the Foundation For Advancing Alcohol Responsibility (FAAR), Penya Barcelonista, 826 DC and Modell's Sporting Goods, we provided 1,500 students representing 47 schools and their families with the most action-packed event in the organization's 20-year history.

One of the service-learning boards each school created
to demonstrate the impact of their project.

The day started with the City Cup title games, which were played as all the other schools trudged across the grassy area toward the music being played by DJ RBI. After two exciting games -- the Burrville girls defeated Seaton and Capital City boys beat Burrville -- all four teams received trophies and medals from Executive Director Amy Nakamoto and special guest Councilmember David Grosso.

Then, on opposite ends of the park, all the elementary and middle schools gathered and shouted out their school names. The full-fledged Jamboree! was underway. A minute later, the green expanse was covered by kids in T-shirts of every color with their school names as they flocked to their first activity.

In between soccer games, elementary school kids had plenty to do at a handful of stations including:

• Reviewing the colorful and creative boards each school made to celebrate their service-learning project. Late in the afternoon, winners were announced for the best boards, with Marie Reed and Brightwood the elementary school service-learning champions, and Brightwood and KIPP KEY the middle school winners.
• Learning about and then creating healthy yogurt parfaits with Revolution Foods to fuel themselves for more games.
• Working together to create fun and silly stories with 826DC by having each member of a team write a line.
• Practicing their shooting accuracy with Penya Barcelonista during a skills challenge. 
• Receiving bags filled with books thanks to our generous donors from FAAR and the National Home Library Association, and World Cup sticker books from Modell's. 
• Doing the hula hoop and dancing to whatever song DJ RBI played next.
• Getting their faces decorated -- always a favorite! -- by volunteers including energetic groups from Capital One and CliftonLarsonAllen.
• And, of course, eating a healthy lunch provided by Revolution Foods

Parents received giveaways, too, including tye-dye shirts from FAAR and coupons from Modell's.

Kelly Miller had a great Jamboree! soccer tournament
and showed tremendous sportsmanship throughout. 

Meanwhile, game after game was played at the middle school fields where three tournaments were played. Each team was guaranteed at least three games, and many played more -- walking from one field to the next with no time in between. On a hot day, the kids representing 17 middle schools demonstrated just how physically fit they are and how much they love soccer, and when there were minor injuries Sport and Spine Rehab was on the scene.

The skill level was high, too, as teams played evenly matched games -- penalty-kick shootouts were a theme -- until the Capital City girls and Brightwood boys defeated Lincoln in a pair of close games preceding Cardozo's win over Kelly Miller to close out the day.

The Barnard Elementary School DC SCORES
team with some of their fans.

By then, everyone was exhausted. As kids, their faces decorated in facepaint, boarded their buses, they were ready for a nap. But they didn't just leave with their tired legs.

In addition to the many giveaways they received, each school left Anacostia Park with a team photo that the kids decorated and framed during the day. It served as a reminder that Jamboree! was just the conclusion to the DC SCORES season -- one which is still fresh in the minds of 1,500 youth and their coaches.

"They have fallen in love with the sport of soccer," Barnard Elementary School coach Erin Druelinger said after Jamboree! of her team, "and more importantly, have become role models at our school."

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Read all the Tweets from the 19th Annual DC SCORES Jamboree! below in our Storify!