Final Post

With our project, we wanted to raise money to give to an organization to help fund HIV/AIDS research in Africa. We figure that this is an important issue because it is estimated that, in 2007, there were 33.2 million people worldwide who were living with AIDS, not to mention all those who died from it. When we were trying to decide what direction we wanted to go with our charity soccer tournament the people from our class put forward that we should give the money that we would hopefully raise toward something that affected Africa. Naturally, we automatically thought about AIDS since most researchers believe that it originated in sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century. It seems obvious that the people of the world needs to do something about the AIDS epidemic, which we are. There is just too much of a disparity in the AIDS epidemic between the "developed" world and "developing" world--96% of those affected in the world live in developing countries. These countries don't have enough resources or technology to adequately find a cure for this (to date, even the "developed" countries in the West have not found a cure). However, our country does have the resources to make an effort to find a cure. We also have money that we can afford to give to African countries so that they can provide prevention tools and materials (without a cure right now, the best option is prevention). Recently the U.S. government committed $15 billion to Africa over a period of five years. Even though we knew that the amount of money we raised would not be anywhere close to the U.S. government's amount, but, as the saying goes, "Every little bit helps." FHI, the organization that our money is going to, employs more than 1,800 people in more than 65 countries. So it goes without saying that they need as much financial help as they can get in order to continue their good work.

The Tournament

The day was gorgeous; we could not have asked for a more beautiful day. We started setting up around 11:00. There were three fields and eight teams. There were also several people who showed up to watch the games. They either had friends playing in the games, or they just wanted to donate to a good cause. We had food, drinks, music, and lots of fun. We also gave away free prizes. Tournament players actually participated in a raffle for chances to win other prizes. We had prized donated by Best Buy, ESPN, DC United, and others. Those who won the raffle won chances to kick soccer balls toward a goal that had signs hung, strung, and taped from the bars of the goal bearing the names of these prizes. We thought it was a great success, and we raised a pretty good amount of money to send to Africa.

Rained Out

For the entire semester, our tournament had been scheduled for Sunday April 20. However, when that day finally came, it was pouring all morning. We had planned to do the tournament rain or shine, but this was different. If we had went through with the tournament, very few people would have showed up. Bon Apetit, who was going to provide hamburgers and hot dogs, would not have been able to show up because they were going to grill. The long and the short of it is that we could not really go through with it. Therefore, it was rescheduled for Saturday April 26.