This is a tale of two sisters who embarked on a service project in 2014 that was so grand in scope, so implausible that even their own parents thought it would be near impossible for them to succeed.
But, they did.
Taylor Jackson, then 10, and her younger sister, Jordyn, 5, wanted to deliver soccer balls to poor and orphaned children around world. Not collect the balls and have them shipped, or drop them off at local charities to be put in care packages with other items, and hope they got in the right hands.
No, Taylor and Jordyn wanted to meet the kids face to face, and spend time in their villages and orphanages kicking the balls around with them on their dirt soccer fields strewn with rocks, broken glass and other debris – far from the manicured, grass fields the girls played club soccer on here at home.
If, along the way, they could provide some hope and compassion for kids who had so little of either, well, that would be a goal they’d never forget scoring.
“We’ve always been involved in a lot of service work as a family, and always included our daughters,” says their mother, Denise Jackson. “We planted the seed with them, and it took on a life of its own. But their dream seemed impossible to me, too grand an idea.”
How would they get the balls and deliver them? Where would they find these kids in remote villages who had the same passion for soccer, but not the chance to play it. Soccer balls only lasted a few weeks at most in these countries before they were ripped to shreds on the rough, uneven terrain.
This was a project that was going to take a lot of research and writing, Denise and her husband, Chris, told the girls. We’re here to help you when we can, but it’s your service project, and you must do the work.
Taylor, with Jordyn by her side, hit the books. She researched different companies manufacturing soccer balls, and found a company called One World Play Project that makes a durable soccer ball specifically designed for play on rough terrain.
Taylor told her mom she was going to call the company and ask the owner to donate some balls for her project. If that’s what she wanted to do, her mother said, Taylor would need to memorize every word she was going to say, and be ready to answer every question, if she got through to the owner – which was a big IF.
Taylor got through. How many balls are we talking about, asked Tim Jahnigan, who founded the company 20 years ago. Taylor froze. She hadn’t thought about it. She put her hand over the phone and whispered to her mom, “How many should I ask for?” Shoot for the moon, Denise said, and settle for what you get.
Taylor asked for 250 balls. They were shocked when Tim said OK. Within a week, the Jackson’s living room was wall-to-wall with indestructible soccer balls that would last the kids for years. All Tim asked was that Taylor account for every single ball she and Jordyn delivered, and how those balls would help these kids?
Now that they had the soccer balls, Taylor began researching how to set up a non-profit charity to hopefully get donations to help defray the travel costs. They named it Soaring Samaritans Youth Movement. They also started making beaded and gemstone bracelets to sell.
Finally, the most important part of their project – finding the kids, and delivering their message with each ball. If two little girls from Los Angeles can travel halfway around the world to bring them indestructible soccer balls, what can they do themselves someday? Anything was possible if you had hope.
With their dad driving, the sisters began visiting churches and different service organizations doing charity work to get some idea of where to visit. Domestically, they were having trouble getting direct access to kids in foster care and battered women’s shelters because of privacy issues.
Not in Mexico, Fiji, Samoa, Panama, Costa Rica, and Tahiti where the Jackson’s traveled to on the girls school breaks to deliver the balls.
“People don’t realize the amount of poverty existing on these islands,” Chris says. “It’s not just Four Seasons hotels.”
Because the durable balls could not be deflated, the whole family would show up at LAX totting half a dozen duffle bags filled with soccer balls, in addition to clothing and school supplies for the kids they stuck in their own luggage.
They took trains and ferries to poor villages where little boys and girls their age were anxiously waiting for the two sisters from Los Angeles who were coming to visit them with indestructible soccer balls.
“Our first visit was to a small Samoan village where the kids had to walk an hour to the soccer field, and most of them were bare footed because of the cost of getting shoes on the island,” Taylor says.
One little boy in Costa Rica was so overjoyed, he told Jordyn he was going to sleep with his soccer ball the rest of his life. They laughed together, then went out and kicked the ball around.
In the last six years, the girls, now 16 and 11, have personally delivered more than 2,500 soccer balls and a ton of hope and compassion to children who desperately need both.
Too grand an idea? Impossible? Not for the Jackson sisters.
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Sunday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com
