22nd edition of Jamboree! brings the community together to celebrate

Written by Lorena Palacios
Communications Intern

(View all Jamboree! photos in our Flickr album)

DC SCORES celebrated the 22nd edition of Jamboree! on a beautiful Saturday filled with soccer, service-learning projects, and activities for the whole community.

During the course of six hours, 2,000 kids, alongside their families, gathered at Anacostia Park to celebrate the end of another successful DC SCORES spring season.

Jamboree! started early for DC SCORES staff in preparation for the exciting day ahead for everyone. Before teams started showing up, the staff arranged activity booths like face-painting and medal making, set up the fields that were going to see many, many goals throughout the day, and prepared an incredibly large group of early-rising volunteers for their tasks during the day.

As the teams arrived one by one, schools dropped off their service-learning posters to display the projects they've been working on all season.

Once setup was complete, Jamboree! officially started with the elementary school City Cup championship games. The girls from Aiton and Thomson and the boys from Aiton and Tubman set the tone for all the great games that would be played nonstop across 15 fields. By the conclusion of the championship games, the expansive grassy field was filled with teams from all eight wards in Washington, DC -- a true citywide event -- as well as hundreds of families, community members, and DC SCORES partners.

As tradition, all of the elementary schools gathered around DJ RBI for chants to represent their schools. One by one, teams yelled out enthusiastically as their schools were called out by Program Director Sean Hinkle.

The first stop for many for the kids included a picture frame booth, where the soccer stars got to showcase their crafting skills. Up next, Goldman Sachs volunteers provided more color to everyone's day with their face painting booth. There were also hundreds of books on display to choose from, as volunteers from Aronson made suggestions for the kids' summer reading lists.

In order to stay game-ready, the student-athletes had stations that kept them warmed up like relay races with members of the November Project, shooting practice with Penya Barcelonista, and some dodgeball to mix it up a bit with volunteers from Grant Thornton.

All the fun activities built an appetite for the teams and coaches, so Revolution Foods was there with healthy meals, which included sandwiches and fruits and veggies to keep those energy levels high for the whole day.

Just when things didn't seem like they could get better, the DC SCORES' teams got a surprise visit from everybody's favorite mascot, D.C. United's Talon. Families, volunteers, and of course the kids smiled from ear to ear as they snapped photos with Talon and danced to DJ RBI's beats.

As the day continued, the energy and enthusiasm never slumped for a second!

The day concluded with the middle school and co-ed championship games, where DC SCORES Executive Director Bethany Rubin Henderson presented the game finalists with well-deserved trophies and medals for all the players and coaches.

At the end of another amazing and successful Jamboree!, it's impossible not to recognize the support and efforts from all of our volunteers -- from just after sunrise until every cone and flag was picked up from the field. Thank you to  the volunteer groups from Aronson LLC, Goldman Sachs, Capital One, November Project DC, Hogan Lovells, Grant Thronton, Clark Construction, Bucknell Alumni, Atlas Corps, and Accenture.

Of course, we need to thank all the partners involved as well for everything they do for DC SCORES: D.C. United, Revolution Foods, DJ RBI, Safeway, Junior League of Washington's Resolution Read Committee, and Penya Barcelonista.

Jamboree! is for the community. For the families, volunteers, partners, and without a doubt the kids! Thank you all for an amazing day filled with sportsmanship, soccer, and tons and tons of fun!

DC SCORES Fall Frenzy delivers nonstop activity for over 1,000 kids

The day began in complete darkness, just an empty soccer field in NE Washington, DC. It ended with the same empty bed of green grass under a blue sky pocked with the puffiest of clouds.

In between 6:30am and 2:30pm, something happened. Something really BIG.

The 19th Annual DC SCORES Fall Frenzy took over the athletic fields at Trinity Washington University Saturday, bringing nonstop soccer games and a host of other sports and arts activities to more than 1,000 elementary school program participants.

The day began with two and a half hours of setup, was followed by a call-and-response with all the teams at 9:20am, and then a 1-2-3 DC SCORES!!! And action.

From there, every DC SCORES team -- all kids and coaches proudly wearing their jerseys, the colors ranging from neon pink, to dark blue, from neon green, to yellow, you get the point; the teams covered the spectrum -- rotated between activities.

Six soccer games at a time were played on the main Trinity field. Up the hill, two more games were conducted at a time. And down the hill, on the lower level, teams switched between an event-record 11 stations all run by DC SCORES program partners and volunteers.

Relay races. Dodgeball. A soccer skills station. Poetry writing. Coloring and drawing. The shooting accuracy station. Facepainting. Picture-taking with D.C. United mascot Talon. And even autographs with DCU players Charlie Horton and Chris Korb.

The event wouldn't have been at all possible without the incredible support of 160-plus volunteers, many representing the dozens of SCORES partner groups who came out to help. From Safeway's huge truck arriving in the morning to deliver loads of water bottles, to AmeriHealth DC's table with lots of healthy goodies for the kids, to the George Washington Swim & Dive team -- the entire team -- picking up trash all over the grounds and breaking down goals to aid a quick exit after the kids were gone, our partners basically ran Fall Frenzy.

Here's a full list of Fall Frenzy partners. Thank you again!
CBRS American University
City Kids
Clark Construction
D.C. United
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Discovery Education
DJ RBI
Edmund Burke School
Kappa Alpha Theta
The Field School
GWU Phi Delta Psi
GWU Men's Swimming and Diving
GWU Men's Soccer
Hogan Lovells US LLP
Howard University Alpha Phi Omega
November Project DC
Promontory Financial Group
Revolution Foods
Trinity Washington University

If you asked any kid their favorite part of Fall Frenzy, you'd likely get a different answer. Many, of course, said the soccer. They relished the chance to not just play, but take on new teams from all over Washington, DC (during our regular game days, teams don't travel too far for games because of late school dismissals and traffic). Others loved the relay races. Others showed off their "Messi" facepainting. And at the end of the day, kids rushed to the table where Horton and Korb sat, handing them shoes and anything elee for autographs. Talon, obviously, was another big hit.

The action-packed day left kids, and their families, exhausted as the field quickly cleared at 2:30pm, the goals, booths and people gone within 30 minutes. By 3pm, it was as if nothing had even happened.

Those who experienced it know much better. Here's some photo evidence.

FALL FRENZY 2016 BY THE NUMBERS

• 1,000+ kids
• 160+ volunteers
• 96 soccer games
• 22 partner groups 
• 11 activity booths
• 1 mascot 

20th DC SCORES Jamboree! wraps up action-packed season!

View the Jamboree! photo album on Flickr!

Nijah Armstrong witnessed a Jamboree! like she'd never seen before Saturday at Anacostia Park.

Nijah, now a senior at North Carolina A&T State University, last experienced the spring-culminating event as a Kelly Miller student in the mid-2000s. Back then, the Jamboree! was held at Trinity University.

Now, it's gotten so big, only places such as the large expanse of grass at Anacostia Park can contain it.

Nijah was one of dozens of DC SCORES alumni who came by or volunteered at Saturday's event to celebrate the spring season. She witnessed  156 soccer games and nonstop activity -- facepainting, relay races, arts and crafts, the presentation of 44 service-learning posters, DJ RBI spinning music all day, and more.

If you experienced every aspect of the Jamboree!, you covered some serious miles.

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After two and a half hours of setup, the day began a little after 8am with the City Cup elementary school championship games. The boys game featured Aiton and Capital City; the girls featured Seaton and Moten.

Upon the completion of the games, emcee extraordinaire Charity Blackwell brought all the schools together for a cheer -- it got loud! -- before everyone dispersed.

Soon, a grassy area the size of at least four football fields was covered with kids in their DC SCORES uniforms. Let the action begin.

Fourteen -- yes, 14! -- soccer games took place at a time. There were eight elementary games ongoing while middle school boys, girls and co-ed tournament games were played nonstop, one right after the other. This wouldn't have been possible if not for the tireless volunteer referees who oversaw dozens of games throughout the day.

When kids weren't playing soccer, they headed to the shade of the field's perimeter where they partook in a wealth of activities.

Volunteers from some tremendous DC SCORES partners -- Clark Construction, AmeriHealth, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Accenture, Pyxera Global, Edmund Burke School, DC Bocce and others -- did everything from facepainting ("Messi" is always a popular request) to running relay races, to dancing with the kids (there's always plenty to learn there!) to helping serve delicious and healthy Revolution Foods lunches!

Before their next game, kids headed to the Penya Barcelonista shooting skills net where they worked on their kicking accuracy with our amazing longtime partners from the fan club. They then visited D.C. United mascot Talon for some last-minute advice before getting loose with dancing, entertaining "Topspin," the mascot of the Washington Kastles tennis team!

Of course, it was hot and it was humid, so this marathon of activity wouldn't have been possible without water. Lots and lots of water. This was made possible by an extremely generous donation of 70 water jugs from DrinkMore Water.

And when there was the infrequent injury or cramp, Sport and Spine Rehab was on hand to take care of those in need.

Check how huge #DCSJamboree is! Such a great turn out on such a beautiful day! #soccer #DCSCORES

A video posted by DC SCORES (@dc_scores) on May 30, 2015 at 9:30am PDT

Soccer was the favorite activity of the day, but it didn't overwhelm the other aspects of the spring season that were celebrated. A casual look at the service-learning posters demonstrated the incredible impact DC SCORES teams made in their communities this spring.

H.D. Cooke and Barnard won the elementary school service-learning contest. H.D. Cooke's students ran a successful anti-bullying campaign in their school and on Saturday explained to staff members and volunteers, step by step, how exactly they did it. Barnard closely followed the four-part service-learning process -- discovery, research, implementation and reflection -- to orchestrate a highly successful trash cleanup of their school.

Chavez Prep won the middle school service-learning prize for a project that hopefully yields future results. They spent the spring advocating for a soccer field at Bruce Monroe Park near their school. As evidenced by their skills on the field -- where the girls barely lost the championship game to Lincoln -- a new or improved green space would only help them to grow.

But really, growth was on display all day Saturday. From the opening whistle of the City Cup games to the final penalty kick of the middle school games around 2:45pm, kids demonstrated just how much they've improved on the soccer field and as teammates and leaders during the DC SCORES year.

And they -- and family members, volunteers and partners -- had loads of fun, too.

Thank you to everyone who made the 20th DC SCORES Jamboree! a raging success!