fugees.pngSteve Amoia over at SoccerLens has two excellent articles up about The Fugees. After the publication of an excellent article in the NY Times early last year, The Fugees were all over the blogosphere and we posted a few things about them as well. But once the buzz subsides, it’s always good to see how an organization has fared. In this case, very well. After profiling the team at SoccerLens, Steve did an excellent interview with Coach Mufleh, the founder of The Fugees.

Many of you probably know that The Fugees have received a few sizable donations, namely $500,000 from Universal Studios and $100,000 from Nike, so you might think they don’t need financial assistance. However, it is likely much of those donations will be used to build soccer fields for The Fuguees, which was one of the reasons the story struck a chord – their local city denied them access to the city parks. But they still need to purchase uniforms, equipment, pay for travel, etc. In the SoccerLens interview, Coach Mufleh noted a current fundraising effort they have underway that I wanted to highlight:

How can the international football community donate time or money to assist the Fugees Family?

They can go to our website www.fugeesfamily.org and donate. We are looking to find 2000 donors that can give $100/year. I would love to have 2000 football fans around the world that make it possible for these beautiful kids to succeed. We as a non-profit rely on foundations and individual donors. We receive no government funding. We are committed to running this program for a long time and it’s incredible how something as simple as football can be so powerful in these kids’ lives. To volunteer you can contact me at [email protected]

So if you find yourself looking for a youth soccer program you can help out beyond your local league, by all means consider The Fugees or any other program working to give at risk kids a chance to play the beautiful game.