Itential Gives Back: Kicking Around with Soccer in the Streets

One of the biggest things that drew me to Itential was the culture. It’s full of talented and passionate people, and at the heart of our culture is supporting others and providing value. This isn’t just limited to our relationships with customers — it’s also really important to live up to that with each other and with our community. Our core values make Itential a place we’re proud to work, and those values drive us to act to be a force of good at work, at home, and everywhere in between.

One of the biggest ways we come together to support our community is our extensive leadership backed volunteering program, ItentialGives. This program was launched to provide an effective way to make a positive impact on our local communities, building a kind of organized structure underneath the fact that people want to volunteer, donate, and contribute. Through ItentialGives, we mobilize our technology, people, and resources across the country to make a positive impact on our local communities.

ItentialGives is one of our largest internal groups and it has a lot of active participation from people in different teams, departments, and cities. We do a lot through ItentialGives, from simple donation drives and promoting fundraisers to facilitating large-scale volunteering for a big group of Itential employees. These bigger participation efforts, especially in organized fundraising and charity events, are an important way we can turn ItentialGives participation into real change.

This year, I was thrilled to hear what our big project was – Soccer in the Streets. Soccer is something I’ve always been passionate about, and I was excited to get to turn that passion into some real change in my city of Atlanta with my fellow Itentialites.

Soccer in the Streets: The Corporate Cup

Every year, Soccer in the Streets hosts a Corporate Cup to bring local businesses together to make a big fundraising impact for underserved children in our Atlanta community. It was a great experience for us, and not just because it was a fun time — we also raised a lot of money as a group and learned more about Soccer in the Streets’ mission.

Soccer in the Streets’ goal is to use innovative sports-based youth development programs to develop future leaders, teach lessons and build a mindset for people to lead rich, fulfilling lives and cultivate healthy communities. You can find out more on their site.

For the event, each company participating registered a team, and each individual on the team hosted a fundraising page to raise donations. At the end of the fundraising period, the amount raised went directly toward Soccer in the Streets’ mission supporting low-income communities through the beautiful game of soccer, a personal favorite of mine (even though it constantly disappoints me as a Man United fan). I was proud of our team as we raised a lot of money per person and in total, and Erik Nelson from Soccer in the Streets agrees:

And to translate those numbers directly into our impact on the community, here’s what else he said:

“The success of this event ensures that the 1500 kids that Soccer in the Streets serves will continue to have access to safe, public spaces where they can feel a part of a community and where they can enjoy the beautiful game. Itential is helping make that happen.”
Erik Nelson– Soccer in the Streets

My Experience with Soccer in the Streets

When the announcement first went out about signing up for the Corporate Cup during a Committee Week (a fun internal project week) we had earlier this year, I took a look at Soccer in the Streets’ site and spoke with some other Itentialites about their experience with the organization. I read through the team’s vision for the local Atlanta community and saw some great stories about the lives they’ve already impacted.

After that, I immediately knew I had to sign up. It was a no brainer for me to get on the team with my fellow soccer enthusiast Itentialites and be part of something special. I was also pleased to see our leadership team supporting us and committing to help the team reach our fundraising goal.

The Corporate Cup was hosted at the Silverbacks Park in Atlanta, GA on a Saturday morning (not too early, luckily). After getting to the field, it was really great to do a quick practice and warm-up session with our team. Unfortunately, none of us is a secret Messi, but we still had a solid group who had clearly played a game or two before. It was a lot of fun spending time with my fellow Itentialites and talking through the plans on how we would set up our team’s formation during the game.

We started off with some team pictures, followed by a beautiful speech from the Soccer in the Streets team members. Here, I think everyone felt the same way I did. The speech covered how Soccer in the Streets works, their goals, and their vision for the future after this fundraiser — I felt excited, proud, and ready to participate in this fun event that had done a lot of good through an activity that I personally relate to. As they pointed out, on the day it felt like any other fun tournament, but these kinds of events can have a huge impact on the kids they work with. That speech is probably what sticks out for me most even now.

Of course, there was still business to attend to. After some warmup sessions, we were ready to play our two group games! The games were a lot of fun, and I got a lot of joy out of playing alongside my coworkers and fellow Itentialites against other companies that also raised money to help the kids. I saw beaming smiles on almost everyone’s face.

Unfortunately, the games weren’t as fruitful as we hoped if you’re talking about results. But we got a lot more out of the experience than that. I felt as proud as I’ve ever been to be an Itentialite when our CTO made a last minute appearance to join the team and play right alongside us. I was thrilled to see that our leadership team recognizes the importance of ItentialGives and how crucial it is for Itential to have a positive impact on the local community.

Even though we ended up getting eliminated from the group stage, that didn’t matter to us. What mattered the most was that we were able to contribute to the fundraiser that exceeded Soccer in the Streets’ goal. I was so proud of our team who decided to show up, even on a brutally hot summer day in Georgia, to play the beautiful game for a beautiful cause.

To learn more about life at Itential, check out our Itentialife page or some more of our Itentialife blogs.