LtN Programs in Charlottesville Flourish Thanks to LtN Club at UVA

Lacrosse the Nations at the University of Virginia started off strong this past August with the executive board recruiting over 15 new members to join the club. Our efforts for the semester focused on balancing between fundraising for the annual LtN Cup and youth volunteering efforts, namely the recurring six-week long lacrosse program held at the Boys and Girls Club of Charlottesville on Cherry Avenue. Because of the success of the Cherry Avenue program in past years, and with the new influx of volunteer members, a new program was extended to the Boys and Girls Club at Jouett Middle School through outreach with their program director. From the first week of October to the week before Thanksgiving, around four to five volunteers traveled to each Boys and Girls Club every week - Cherry Avenue on Tuesdays, Jouett on Fridays. For a time frame about an hour and a half, our volunteer coaches focused on getting to know the kids that frequently attended the program, while teaching them basic lacrosse skills, ultimately providing a new sport-related platform that allowed them to build their individual characters. Our Club at UVA plans to repeat this same six-week program in the spring of 2018, at both Boys and Girls Clubs, with hopes of adding multiple pop-up clinics during the spring that would be open to all Charlottesville youth community members. 

In volunteering at the Clubs, we also realized that the equipment the Clubs had on hand were in pretty rough shape - some sticks had broken heads, others had ancient mesh. Lacrosse the Nations has generously offered to help with providing new sticks to replace these old and worn-down sticks that the Boys and Girls Club currently has in supply.

Fundraising for the LtN Cup within our Club at UVA was done primarily through individual efforts - and proved to be an amazingly successful endeavor. Of the over $1300 raised, the majority of what was raised came from individual members’ outreach to family, friends, and members of the lacrosse community. In addition to these individual efforts, a lump amount of $500 was also contributed through older funds raised from a 5k race and several student restaurant nights hosted by LtN at UVA. We hope to expand our fundraising to involve the club men and women’s lacrosse teams at UVA, and even local high school teams, in order to further solidify the Charlottesville lacrosse community.

Future plans for our Club, other than continuing our current volunteering and fundraising efforts, also include promotional and educational events to not only promote our organization, but to also educate UVA students on how to involve themselves in international service in an effective and worthwhile manner. Whether this is accomplished through an open seminar, guest speakers, or a university-wide presentation, we hope that our club can prove to not only be a fundamental piece of the international Lacrosse the Nations presence, but also a model for other college organizations with a focus on local and international service.

My summer with LtN in Charlottesville, VA

by Annie Cory

It is hard to encapsulate the numerous experiences I had working with Lacrosse the Nations in Charlottesville, VA. Hopefully, I will be able to give you just a glimpse of what it was like to watch the kids grow, learn and get better at the sport I love.

To preface my summer as the LtN intern in Charlottesville, I would like to share a little bit about myself. I am a rising sophomore at Princeton University where I am a member of the Women’s Lacrosse Team. I grew up in and went to high school in Charlottesville and have been involved with LtN for over 5 years. My involvement and commitment to LtN has taken many forms: fundraising, organizing 4v4 tournaments, sponsoring a team in the LtN Cup, running gear drives, and even travelling on a service trip to LtN in Nicaragua. Most recently, I have been serving LtN as their summer intern, working alongside Natalie Wood, the Program Director in Charlottesville and of course, Javier (LtN's Executive Director). During my first year at college I was constantly thinking of ways to continue my support of LtN and its mission. At every opportunity, as new gear shipments came flowing into our locker room,  I encouraged my teammates to donate their “gently-used” equipment to LtN and I rounded up goggles, cleats, goalie pads, and sticks. So, when contemplating what I was going to do this summer, LtN was always on my mind. One morning, while sitting at my desk checking email, I received notification of an endowed fellowship sponsored by the University’s PACE Center for Civic Service. The fellowship, a design-your-own internship in conjunction with an organization/mentor, became immediately synonymous with Lacrosse the Nations for me. I think I called my mom first, and then instantly called Javier. In two short days, I was interviewing for the fellowship, and only a few short weeks later, I had been accepted as a John C. Bogle ‘51 Fellow for the summer. And this is what brought me back to Charlottesville to enrich my service to LtN and help to ensure the future success of the domestic programs that LtN has been fostering ever since my initial involvement.

This summer in Charlottesville has not always been smooth sailing, but once we worked out some of the kinks, we saw great improvement. The enthusiasm and engagement that resulted from a more structured curriculum and more directed implementation of life lessons only enriched the experience of every player and made their progress that much more perceptible to our coaching staff.

Walking to practice in the morning

The field and goals at the Club

Two of our superstar award winners after the practice that focused on perseverance and hard work.

Team cheer! 

Coaches and players after practice one day

We love lacrosse!! 

A couple laughs on our last day of practice! 

Group picture after our final practice. Can't wait to see some of these lacrosse players back in the fall! 

It was a rewarding experience to see growth in the players that we worked with this summer. We got to see them progress from catching their first pass, to scoring their first goal, to playing successful defense and beyond. To see someone else excel at a sport that has brought me so much success is transformative and heart warming. For me, though, an even more rewarding experience was to watch how the players’ demeanor changed throughout our 6 weeks of lacrosse practices. At the beginning, some players lacked focus or enthusiasm and were easily frustrated by the difficulty of mastering fundamental lacrosse skills. By the end, every player demonstrated enthusiasm, willpower and determination; these qualities quickly translated to success on the lacrosse field. This was obvious to the coaches and I think it was obvious to the other players as well. It was so exciting to see the scrimmages progress from a scrum of players all going after the same ground-ball to a more organized offense with kids getting open off cuts, calling for the ball, and everyone marking up on defense.

Overall, the combination of progress in attitude and progress on the lacrosse field made for an overwhelmingly successful summer. Implementing a full six week organized practice scheme, with life lessons and lacrosse drills included, helped to bring structure and success to the players and coaches. We are extremely excited to see the continued success of the Charlottesville programs as a number of UVA students carry out the life lessons and practice plans in the fall and we hope to see similar success at LtN programs in other parts of the US.

Player Spotlight: Guissell

Meet this month's spotlight player, Guissell! Guissell started playing lacrosse in Nicaragua alongside her older brother, Ariel, three years ago. Guissell is one of our most dedicated players. Despite her brother's inability to attend practices due to his university commitments, Guissell has attended close to every practice this past year. Guissell constantly exhibits a love for the game. She actively asks to help coach new players and is the first one to put on her equipment and jump on the field. Guissell plans to attend university after graduating high school this year. 

Age: 16

Year in school: 11th grade

Favorite Class: Physics

Favorite part of Lacrosse: Learning new drills and activities at practice

Something you have learned from lacrosse: "I've learned that if you respect your teammates they will in turn give you respect."

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