The One Valley Festival

Well, it's over and it was fantastic! The first (and possibly annual) One Valley Festival was a huge success. We had right at 60 teams which probably equaled about 400 kids playing on the day. We had music blaring, around 30 volunteers running around keeping things going, and even some fun relay games.

The U7 African Bombers from Masiphumelele

I'm so thankful for all the amazing support we had from my partner Michael Jenkins, my amazing wife Sarah, and all the volunteers that spent their day refereeing the games, organizing the kids, leading the relay games, selling drinks & other merchandise, and generally just having an amazing attitude. Everybody was so willing to jump in and do whatever.

Two of our great volunteers, Ben & Robert

I also want to think Phil Mason from Reemaxe Sportswear for donating the game balls & the Western Province Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport that provided the inflatable field that the Under 7's played in.

After so much work beforehand you would think it would have worn me out so that I never wanted to see another festival again. However, I'm actually REALLY excited about doing it again. We learned so much about how to do things better, things we could add, things that would enrich the experience for the kids, and so on. Also, teams now know about it so they will be excited about it's return.

Some players from Juventus

There were so many great things about the day, and you've heard some from Michael & the girls from 7 Stars on previous posts, but I want to highlight a few more. We really emphasized to the kids that the day was about enjoying each other from all the different communities, and they seemed to really embrace that. We had almost no fighting or little skirmishes. The kids played hard & fair. And one of the great things was just having people from all 3 racial groups together as ONE valley. They played together and enjoyed each other. That's actually a really significant thing. We have some work to do to get the 3 communities equally represented, but it was a great start.

Getting After It!

Kieren & Sarah with one of our Favorites, Kaka

The Back of Our T-shirt