'You're my GOAT': Youth soccer camp focused on serving refugees gets visit from Spokane Velocity on Thursday

When 90+ Project Director of Programming and Coach Aaron Lewis asked the players at Thrive International’s youth summer soccer camp how many of them weren’t born in the United States, dozens of hands shot up. Sitting in the grass at Franklin Park, those same players watched as four out of the five Spokane Velocity players who were visiting camp Thursday raised their hands, too. “You’re my GOAT,” 9-year-old Mel Akon later told Velocity left-backer Moses Mensah while the kids collected autographs on soccer balls, cleats and posters. “One day I’m gonna look like you and be like you.” “I want to see that,” Mensah, originally from Ghana, answered without hesitation. The annual youth soccer camp is run through a partnership with refugee resettlement organization Thrive International and sports-based youth development organization 90+ Project. This year, close to 200 kids, including kindergartners to 12th graders, from more than a dozen nationalities, arrived at Franklin Park to play soccer. Gifts processed in this system are tax deductible.

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