WASHINGTON, DC – On Tuesday, May 15, President Obama will welcome Major League Soccer champions, the LA Galaxy to the White House to honor their 2011 season and their MLS Cup victory. This visit will also continue the tradition begun by President Obama of honoring sports teams for their efforts to give back to communities as part of their trip to Washington.
Following the ceremony, LA Galaxy players will join the First Lady to hold a Let’s Move! soccer clinic on the South Lawn for students from across the country. The children participating come from the U.S. Soccer Foundation’s Soccer for Success programs in DC, Houston and Miami and America SCORES programs in DC, St. Louis and Denver. Earlier this year, the White House honored a member from both organizations as a Let’s Move! Champion of Change. The children will also have the chance to watch the ceremony.
The U.S. Soccer Foundation, the major charitable arm of soccer in the United States, runs the national after-school program Soccer for Success. Soccer for Success provides children in urban underserved areas with structured physical activity, nutrition education and mentorship, for 90 minutes a day, three times per week for 24 weeks per year, at no cost to their families. Soccer for Success ensures that children in under-resourced communities have easy and affordable access to a high quality out-of-school program that supports their physical and personal development. The children participating in the event are from Miami, FL, Houston, TX and Washington, DC where the U.S. Soccer Foundation partners with the YMCA of Greater Miami, the Houston Parks and Recreation Department and United for D.C. respectively to implement the program in those cities.
America SCORES provides innovative afterschool and summer programming which combine soccer, poetry and spoken word, and service-learning every day for over 24 weeks each year. America SCORES participants receive ten times more exercise than the national average and lower their BMI by 2% by the end of each season. Using soccer as a tool to encourage fitness, sportsmanship, and leadership, America SCORES inspires the life-long appreciation of sports and health-enhancing behaviors like choosing to eat more fruit and vegetables, participating in organized sports and spending less time watching television and playing video games. Each year, America SCORES serves 7,500 students at 150 schools through fourteen affiliates located in major urban centers across the United States. Founded in 1994 in Washington DC, America SCORES grew to a national organization and expanded to Denver in 1999, and again to St. Louis in 2005. Today, DC SCORES serves over 800 low-income DC youth at 27 schools; America SCORES Denver serves 320 youth at ten West Denver DPS schools; America SCORES St. Louis serves 260 youth at seven schools.
TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2012
2:05 PM EDT: The President’s Remarks Honoring the MLS Cup Champion LA Galaxy
3:00 PM EDT: The First Lady’s South Lawn Soccer Clinic with students and the LA Galaxy
For coverage of the visit, stay tuned to LAGalaxy.com, follow the Galaxy on Twitter @LAGalaxy, or "like" the team on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lagalaxy.
