My name is Lauren Markwith. My teammates and I play for Larry Draluck U17. I am a member of the Guatemalan National Soccer Team and I also play for Mater Dei varsity soccer team. As you all may already know, my teammates Kira Weaver, MacKenzie Curry, Miranda Baca, Sierra Crawford, Hannah Stammer, Tony Holland, Hanna Watkins, Erin McCann and I, recently took a journey to Guatemala taking with us about 100 pairs of soccer cleats, 5 teams uniforms including goalie gloves and uniforms, 30 Mater Dei t-shirts, 80 tooth brushes, 80 toothpaste, 80 flip-flops, soccer balls, 250 crayons boxes and 250 coloring books. All the items were donated to www.strike4betterfutures.org.

I want to thank my teammates for their courage, hard work, and dedication while in Guatemala. In Guatemala, we worked with 250 kids in the morning doing soccer clinics and working in the classrooms. After lunch we worked on building chicken coups. The children are in desperate need of food, clothing, and housing, but they are happy and loved us unconditionally. On our last day we were able to give them the donated items we had brought for them. It was an amazing life experience for all of us.

We were honored by Alvaro Arzu, Mayor of Guatemala City because of my affiliation with the Guatemalan WNT. Mayor Arzu is a big soccer fan and he heard about the work we were doing for the children, so he presented us each with a proclamation/certificate to thank us for our contributions to the children. It was an amazing experience to have met him and his cabinet! There was a lot of press and media covering the event which was nerve rocking, but a great experience over all.

I also want to thank my courageous teammates for taking this journey with me and making a difference to better the world...you all are my heroes!!!

I would like to personally thank those Blues families who generously donated their SC Blues soccer uniforms! Here at the Blues we are making a difference!

This is not the end of our journey, but just the beginning. If you are interested in going to Guatemala or if you would like to in the future donate your old blues soccer uniform and/or soccer cleats, we have open arms for them. Please take a moment to visit the website www.strike4betterfutures.org to see the children receiving your donated Blues uniforms and to see what other items are needed for future trips.

Sincerely,

Lolo :)

In Summer Tournament play our younger Blues teams are experiencing quite a bit of success at several tournaments in Southern California. This past weekend U8 Rennie won the Murrieta Surf Championship while the U10 Kale and U9 Draluck won the So Cal Cup in Oceanside. Recently in August 2/3 weekend play our U9 Blues Kale team won the Carlsbad Cup tournament hosted by Carlsbad Lightning on Sunday and the U11 Blues Helm team won the South County Slammers tournament on the same day.

Down at the prestigious Surf Cup our younger teams had an outstanding weekend. The U13 Blues Kale team and U14 Blues Ali team advanced all the way to the quarter finals before getting eliminated while the U10 Blues Rennie team made it to the semi finals before bowing out of Surf Cup.

Finally, the Blues U11 Rennie & Bobak team, the U12 Blues Baker team, and the U13 Blues Baker team were all crowned champions on Monday afternoon at Surf Cup! Despite the hot and humid weekend conditions all of our Blues teams performed very well during a competitive soccer weekend. Congratulations to all teams!