Soccer Unity Project connecting kids from more than 100 schools and zip codes

BY LEVAN REID, CBS BOSTON

BOSTON - The Soccer Unity Project in Boston is taking advantage of the fact that soccer is the universal game.

"Over the last 15 or 20 years, soccer has become the most expensive sport in the country of the four most popular sports," the project's president and founder, Caroline Foscato, told WBZ-TV.

They're bringing kids together from more than 100 schools.

"It's over 100 schools and zip codes that we have kids coming from because all of our youth programming is free," she said. "We're a non-profit that's driven to use the sport to connect our community and also provide equitable opportunity for youth to play."

The social change organization is also using the love of the game to help kids learn English to help them in school. The project encourages camaraderie.

"There will be kids on the field that are bilingual and there will be other kids that are just learning the language and they will translate to each other. Then they start to learn the language and by the end of the season, you can see that the kids that weren't speaking much English are now actually communicating with all the kids on the team," Foscato told WBZ.

"Every year I cry on the field because I know that there are people that are meeting each other and learning about each other that never would have met if we didn't do what we do and how we do it. We've had people tell us that for their college essays, they write about their experience with us."