SFS Hosts Annual ESWS Overseas Adoptees Soccer Tournament

On Saturday, April 20, 2024 SFS hosted the annual Eastern Social Welfare Society Overseas Adoptees Soccer Tournament. This is the 8th year hosting the community event which started back in 2015 when ESWS was looking for a venue to have the event for the overseas adoptees. SFS has hosted this event since 2015 minus 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

ESWS thought of making a soccer team with the overseas adoptees as a way to have them come together and grow together as a community as many transitioned back to their motherland of South Korea. 

After unfortunate repeated rejections trying obtaining a venue, ESWS reached out to SFS in 2015 to ask about using the field and the rest is history. Whether rain or hail, the soccer tournament has kept its place at our school as the event that became the turning point for community service at SFS as we know it today.

Four teams consisting of the ESWS Staff team, the Domestic Adoptees Family team, the Overseas Adoptees team and the Korea Celebrity Team played the tournament throughout the day. 

At the same time a children’s program that has always been offered for the domestic adoptee children who have been adopted to Korean families in South Korea was happening at the MS.

This year, CMO Paul Kim and the ESWS HS club members led the children’s program with arts and crafts time as well as baking yummy chocolate chip cookies with BS Katy Freeman, Peri Freeman and Elena Pinkston which was a hit with the kids.

Four MS students, James Rader, Max Veise, Nuri Krumscheid and Jorge Martinez volunteered to help the Domestic Adoptee Family team as their talents for soccer shined out on the field during the games and brought some points for the team too.

SFS HOS Mr. Colm Flanagan, who has not missed one soccer game, received a special appreciation plaque from ESWS President Jin Sook Kim to thank SFS for its generosity and support for the soccer tournament through the years. General Affairs Manager Mr. Dae Woon Kim translated Mr. Flanagan’s welcome speech as well as giving directions on facility use to our guests of about 220 people.

Hosting the service event was really an SFS family effort involving extra time from staff, students, administrators, faculty, GA staff, security and J&J Catering. To put the cherry on top of the service event, Mr. Paul Rader Director of Sports has helped recruit professional soccer referees to volunteer their service for the games for the past two years. How blessed we are to be a part of such an amazing community. We would like to thank everyone who helped with the soccer event and may we continue to share the many blessings God has given to SFS with others through community service.