During the last week of July, Xochi ’15 gave back to her community by teaching the children at 3rd Street Elementary School the basics of soccer. With the assistance of a couple of other youth volunteers, she coached around twenty to thirty children between the ages of five and eleven for two-and-a-half hours each day, from 9:30 AM to 12:00 PM. She started this community-service summer program herself with the help of Community-Outreach Coordinator Miranda Payne.

“It was definitely hard organizing so many kids at so many different age levels and skills, but I was able to take from my own soccer experience,” she said.

Xochi has played soccer since she was four years old, and as a freshman, she made the Varsity team at Marlborough. Since she started, her father has helped her develop her skills as her own personal coach. Taking his advice, she effectively made use of drills and games that would help improve the young soccer players’ motor skills and coordination.

“I actually learned that the best thing for them to do was to have them scrimmage, because they had fun being able to kick the ball, score goals, and play goalkeeper,” she said. She explained that because a lot of the children were not well-trained in the sport, she had to keep the drills basic, and small games were the best way to keep them interested and let them have fun.

“It was a very nice experience to give back after all the years that people have coached me and to finally be in a coaching position,” Xochi said, sharing her motivation to offer her time and work with the children at 3rd Street Elementary. “These kids really appreciated playing soccer.”