Both the men and woman’s soccer teams here at Bucks are doing different types of community service projects as a way to give back to the less fortunate. Men’s soccer will be visiting Ronald McDonald House and the women’s team will be working with Love Your Melon.
The men’s team tries to do at least a few events each year. In the past, they have been to the Ronald McDonald House Charities in Camden, N.J, retirement facilities, soup kitchens to donate utensil packets as well as doing donation drives. The team tries to hold donation drives at least two times a year.
When they went to the Ronald McDonald House last year, both the kids and players were having a blast. Justin Burroughs, head coach of the men’s soccer team, says, “big kids and little kids having fun. The kids didn’t want them to leave and vice versa.”
Burroughs encourages his team to participate in events to realize that there is something “bigger than soccer, school and the team which teaches them to do good in the community.”
The team attended Ronald McDonald House again in Camden, N.J. on Sunday, Sept. 25.
The woman’s soccer team is also giving back to their community this season. Taylor Flanagan, 20, a criminal justice major from Holland, created the Bucks Love Your Melon campus crew in Jan. 2016. Love Your Melon is an organization that was originally started by two college students back in Oct, 2012. Their mission is to “[put] a hat on every child battling cancer in America” as well as donating money to pediatric cancer research. Since then, Love Your Melon has added a campus crew program, which is where different colleges and universities join the mission to beat childhood cancer.
Flanagan said her inspiration came from her own mother’s battle with lung cancer and this was her way of giving back. When you join the campus crew, you then help spread awareness, by representing Love your Melon.
They also created superhero day, in April, where college students deliver toys and hats to kids in hospitals and their homes. Some Bucks students who joined the Love Your Melon crew participated in superhero day, where they visited with a little boy named Blaise at his home near Villanova. They went to his house and brought him toys, a Love your Melon hat and feel better cards.
You can follow Bucks’ Love Your Melon campus crew for updates for different events on Facebook and Instagram. If you are interested in joining the Bucks Love Your Melon campus crew you can message them on Facebook at @loveyourmelonbccc.