ELMHURST – Elmhurst resident Laura Stukel believed Elmhurst soccer families could come together to support children's participation in soccer in Zambia through donating soccer equipment, and her expectations have come to fulfillment, though there is some work left to be done.

Erik Lek, a soccer coach from Sweden, stayed with Stukel's family for about a month and learned of fellow soccer coach Job Mwanza's request for donations of soccer equipment for children in Zambia. Mwanza has been working with children in Lusaka, Stukel said.

She said she believed Elmhurst families would come together to help.

"I knew how the people of Elmhurst are and I know how soccer families are, and I just knew that we were going to have this incredible response," she said.

In 2017, the Stukel family filled about a one-car garage, and they had even more donations this year.

A portion of the donations both years came from the Elmhurst American Youth Soccer Organization Region 399, Stukel said. Last year, there was a dropbox for coaches to donate gear AYSO didn't want to take back.

This year, AYSO donated more than 1,700 pieces of obsolete equipment from storage, she said. Team Elmhurst Soccer Club, a traveling soccer team, also helped spread the word about the donation drive among its participating families, she added.

Overall, they collected about 3,000 items this year, Stukel said. The items will be given to children through Rural Sports Foundation Zambia, which is comparable to AYSO.

Rural Sports Foundation Zambia's mission also includes having coaches educate children about the problems of child marriages and childhood pregnancies, water cleanliness and HIV prevention, she said.

Some children in Zambia have been playing with balls that are too big for them, or they sometimes have been using balls they have created from plastic bags and material to twine it together, Stukel said. She said the soccer fields tend to get hard in dry summer seasons and tree roots come up in them, but the children play anyway, in bare feet, because of their passion for the sport.

"We're not sending it because there's this difference, but because there's this connection," Stukel said.

Matt Lundgren, regional commissioner for the AYSO 399 board, said the soccer association had been accumulating material such as uniforms, soccer balls, referee whistles and coach bags in its storage locker and had a big cleanup this year.

"Everything we could that would be useful to young soccer players, we donated to them," Lundgren said.

AYSO also provided money for shipping the supplies from the funds it had allocated for charitable purposes, he said.

"We thought it would be something good to support," Lundgren said.

Stukel said she thinks part of the good turnout could be attributed to the "cool opportunity" for families to be able to pass along items their children can no longer use to children across the globe.

"When you put the right people in the right place at the right time, and when you just connect with something like soccer and doing good for other people, it's just amazing what the response is," she said.

At this point, the drive organizers have stopped collecting donations, but they are still looking for "box angels," Stukel said.

She said it's been difficult to raise the money for the shipping, though AYSO provided money for the items the soccer organization donated.

Box angels help fund the shipping, which costs about $100 per box. They also can partner and pay $50 to match another box angel's $50 contribution, Stukel said.

As of July 26, they still needed 16 box angels, she said. The money is needed by Aug. 1.

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How to help

To be a box angel, contact Laura Stukel via email at laurars@usa.com or via the Soccer Gear for Zambia Facebook page at facebook.com/SoccerGearZambia.