Courtesy of Mary King Coleman, Development director St. Michael’s Episcopal School
As part of a senior year requirement for James River High School’s Center for Leadership and International Relations Specialty Center, St. Michael’s alumna, Kelsey Dwyer ’06, selected a service project with a global focus and which involved working with children.

Tying her passion for playing sports, especially field hockey, the empathy she has developed for those in impoverished countries and her desire to “give back” to St. Michael’s Episcopal School, Kelsey developed her project through research of the International Alliance for Youth Sports: Global Gear Drive, an organization that gives used sports equipment to underprivileged kids around the world and helps establish youth sports programs.

Working with the organization, Kelsey implemented a Global Gear Drive for St. Michael’s Middle School. Approximately 150 pieces of sports equipment were collected in three days. Not only was collecting equipment for the International Alliance for Youth Sports part of Kelsey’s goal, but she hoped that Middle School students would realize that they, too, could make an impact on the world by broadening their horizons by creating a humanitarian awareness through a mutual love of sports.