NEW HOME FOR THIS BLOG

Please join us at our new home at www.urbanministrycenter.org and under the programs tab you will see Community Works 945 and then Street Soccer 945

To check out all the Street Soccer USA happenings around the country visit:

www.streetsoccerusablog.com and www.streetsoccerusa.org

Ebony Wright of Street Soccer 945 makes USA National Team for Homeless World Cup

Link the video of Ebony here:
http://www.wsoctv.com/family-spotlight/20402517/detail.html

Program Uses Sports To Turn Lives Around

Posted: 5:02 pm EDT August 14, 2009
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- To an outsider it might look like just a few friends playing around, but to 21-year-old Ebony Wright it's become like family, and a link to her future.

“I ended up on the streets because of one of my exes. I had no job, no money, and didn't have a place to go. Didn't know charlotte that well, so I got stuck out here,” she said.
Wright now lives in an abandoned apartment, but through the Urban Ministry Center she joined Street Soccer USA, a program that uses sports to end homelessness.
“Since I've joined, I have a job. I'm getting ready to get my own place. Soccer has been awesome to me. It's cool. I love it!” she exclaimed.
Wright just competed with the Charlotte team in Washington, D.C., and was the only woman selected to join the U.S. national team headed to compete in the Homeless World Cup next month in Italy.

Program director Rob Cann said for the players he's coach and counselor.

“With Ebony, she was lost and she didn't know what she was going to do. We took her love and passion for sports and we harnessed that,” he said.

“He is a big mentor for me with soccer because I'm glad, because if I didn't know him, I don't know where I would be right now,” Wright said.

Using teamwork, they build relationships and trust and then help players set goals, such as complete their education and find jobs and housing.
Wright said it's helping her win not only in soccer but in life.
“It's game time. I got to get ready for it. I got to get ready -- I am ready for it!” she said.

Wright competes in the Homeless World Cup in Milan, Italy, next month.
Street Soccer USA was founded in Charlotte and now has 15 other sites across the country.

For more, visit http://www.streetsoccerusa.org/

www.urbanministrycenter.org and www.streetsoccer945.org

Skirt Magazine!

SKIRT MAGAZINE- AUGUST 2009
http://charlotte.skirt.com/node/56312

He's So Original
Rob Cann gets his kicks.
By Aleigh, Wednesday, July, 29, 2009 1 comments

Photo by Deborah Triplett

Rob works with Charlotte’s homeless community as the director of Street Soccer 945, Charlotte’s co-ed homeless soccer team, which was the first of its kind in the United States. Created in 2005 through the Urban Ministry Center, the program offers our local homeless population a way to build self-confidence and camaraderie, and each player has to work with Rob to develop three-, six-, and twelve-month goals.

In its first year, the team traveled abroad to compete in the Homeless World Cup, and although they lost every match, they snagged the fair play trophy—a very proud moment. Now, there are 16 programs in 16 U.S. cities, and the US Cup is held every July in Washington, D.C., with the top players going on to represent the U.S. at the Homeless World Cup.

“This is meaningful to me,” says Rob. “I know we’re on to something here. Other cities have followed Charlotte’s lead. It’s something to be proud of.”

What are your favorite things about reading skirt!? “It seems like it’s unabashedly girly, but highlights women doing great, creative, positive things in the community. And girly doesn’t mean superficial.”

And wearing a skirt? “Liberating. It felt nice.”

Street Soccer USA Cup 2009: SS945 Tournament in Pictures

THE TEAM
NORI
NORI CHASING DOWN A LOOSE BALL
FORMER NATIONAL TEAM MEMBER, RAY, WITH THE CANN BROS.
OSMAN AND MAMADI LISTENING TO RAY'S PREGAME TALK
PABLO WORKING HARD IN THE DC HEAT
MISTER FIGHTING OFF A DEFENDER AND ATTACKING THE GOAL
CASPER WITH ANOTHER HUGE SAVE
PABLO BEING PABLO
MAMADI PUTTING THE MOVES ON AN AUSTIN PLAYER
MAMADI AND PABLO
INTENSE EBONY
EBONY, PICKED TO PLAY ON THE US NATIONAL TEAM
EBONY AND NORI, WINNERS OF THE MOST OUTSTANDING FEMALE PLAYER AWARD
EBONY LOOKING TO SHOOT

TEAM 945!

MAMADI WORKING HARD ON THE FIELD

CASPER, SELECTED TO THE US NATIONAL TEAM PLAYER POOL, WITH A BIG SAVE

PUMPED UP AFTER A BIG WIN

Street Soccer 945: Raod to the Street Soccer USA Cup 2009: FC Watershed

FC Watershed is a soccer team formed out of Watershed Church. Heidi Snyderburn contacted me this winter to get herself and her team involved with our progam. So on a Tuesday afternoon in February we met at Freedom Park and started playing soccer together. That soccer match then turned into a monthly meeting where sometimes we played against each other and other times we mixed together and played and sometimes we just talked and kicked the ball around together. The relationships that have formed between players has been a stablizing force for our team members and Watershed has truly reached out to us to get to know us. They have treated us as friends and as people and have gone the extra mile to invest in the lives of our team and community. The team has been super in their support recently helping field teams to scrimmage us in the 4 on 4 street soccer style that we will be playing in DC. They have prepared us well.

Pasted here are a few words from Heidi about their soccer team and their experience playing with us:

Watershed is a church where urban lives intersect the Divine, where compassion, conversation, and creativity coalesce, where relationships go beyond surface level and where ALL walks of life converge.

An expression of Watershed’s pursuit in these areas is by way of its developing relationship within the homeless community of Charlotte through the vehicle of soccer. For the past 6 months, Watershed’s soccer team, FC Watershed, has teamed up with Urban Ministry’s homeless soccer team, Street Soccer 945.

The two soccer teams have been scrimmaging and practicing together to prepare the 945team for the Street Soccer USA Cup in Washington, DC. The relationships built in these environments have, over time, morphed into mentoring opportunities and friendships. The partnership of FC Watershed and Urban Ministry’s 945 Team are setting an example to the greater Charlotte area that hope and transformation for it’s homeless community are possible and within reach.

Watershed is a part of our soccer family. Thier support makes our journey to Washington so much more special because we know that they are counting on us to make them proud. We will be thinking about you guys. Thanks for your support.

Street Soccer 945: Road to the Street Soccer USA Cup 2009- SS945 in the News!

Michelle Bailey of WBTV Charlotte covered Street Soccer 945 at our practice at the Sports Connection. Have a look!

http://tiny.cc/SSUSAcharlotte

Street Soccer 945: Road to the Street Soccer USA Cup 2009- TEAM BUILDING

This weekend Street Soccer 945 took the team away to the Tennessee mountains to work on some team building exercizes and to bond our team together before our trip to Street Soccer USA Cup 2009.
Peter Fink, super volunteer, invited the team to his family house. We departed on Saturday just in time to grill hot dogs and hamburgers and watch the sunset. The team then sat down at a family style dinner and took turns sharing with the group the best and worst parts of our week.

TEAM DINNER

COACHES PETE AND RAY

LUIS SPEAKS TO THE TEAM



Luis in particular opened up about his appreciation for having what he called "genuine friends" he has made on the team. While in living in Miami he said he had plenty of friends but the kind of friends he had to keep an eye on and this team has helped restore his faith in people and relearn to trust people and know there are good people out there he can let his guard down to.

On Sunday after a good nights rest with each player in a bed of his or her own, a luxury not many on our team know, we woke up to Pete cooking breakfast for everyone. Then we went down stairs to work together, to form a bond together for DC. Pete is pictured holding a couple of wooden boards. Each team member received a board after they told the team what they individually were going to bring to the team to help us be a cohesive unit on and off the field in DC. Some said, "never give up, not matter the score," while others said, "I am going to listen to my teammates and to coach." The players were given the boards and then they had to cross a pit of lava (the concrete deck) and get to the other side without touching the ground. The boards were their only refuge. If they were to take a hand off the board it would float away. This took communication and what we learned is that communication is not only talking, but listening and the tone in which you deliver you message can effect how your teammates receive what you have to say. You can tell by the pictures we came together and worked hard to get everyone across the pit safely.



PETE ASKS "WHY DID YOU LET GO OF THE BOARD?"



MISTER LOOKS FOR GUIDANCE

LUIS TALKS ABOUT WHAT THEY STRUGGLED WITH AT FIRST AND THEN WHAT MADE THEM WORK TOGETHER TO GET ACROSS

THEN THE COACHES HAD THEIR TURN!!








Rob, Ray, Pete and Curtis luckily made it too!