Having grown up in the Houston area, Stuart Holden is used to the hurricane warnings. It's an annual part of life for those who live near the Gulf of Mexico. The Houston Dynamo midfielder would watch the coverage on television and be thankful that his friends and family were spared.
It was a different feeling altogether for Holden when he and teammate Brian Ching were watching the devastation Hurricane Ike wreaked in Galveston and Houston as they were in a hotel in San Jose preparing to take on the Earthquakes in an Major League Soccer game last month.
"When it's your hometown and it could be affecting people, you know, you obviously pay more attention to it," Holden said.
Holden, Ching and the rest of the Dynamo players were lucky. While they lived without power for up to two weeks, the players and staff were relatively unscathed considering the wide-ranging destruction in the Houston area. Some of Holden's family members sustained flooding damage and a family friend had his home split in half by a falling tree.
"They've had to change their plans for a while," Holden said. "There's lot of cases like that around where I grew up about 20 miles from where I live now."
Immediately after the storm passed, Dynamo staff met to discuss how the club can help out, especially the members of the large soccer community in the Houston area.
"Kids playing soccer is a fiber of life and community and that's been taken away from them and if we can help restore that and get that piece back together it brings a bit of normalcy back to people's lives," Dynamo chief operating officer Chris Canetti said. "That alone will help, maybe moreso than a big check or something along those lines."
Through Dynamo Charities and in conjunction with the South Texas Youth Soccer Association (STYSA) and MLS W.O.R.K.S, the charitable arm of Major League Soccer, the club soon designated October as Hurricane Relief Month with activities planned for each of Dynamo's three MLS home games at Robertson Stadium, beginning with the match against D.C. United on Sunday.
The Dynamo will wear white jerseys for the game against United -- just the second time they've worn white at home -- and the jerseys will be autographed and auctioned off after the game. All Dynamo proceeds from the auction and from on-site parking will benefit youth soccer teams.
On Wednesday, Oct. 15, when the Dynamo take on the San Jose Earthquakes -- a game postponed from Sept. 20, the weekend after the hurricane hit -- children 14 and under have been offered free tickets and a portion of the ticket proceeds will go toward helping local soccer clubs affected by the hurricane.
"We thought this was a good opportunity to do two things -- to raise awareness that one of our games had been postponed," Dynamo president and general manager Oliver Luck said. "But more importantly we think it's the right thing to do in terms of helping some folks, particularly some of the soccer communities that have been affected, get back on their feet."
The club will be accepting monetary donations as well as donations of soccer equipment at each game, concluding with the Oct. 18 game against the LA Galaxy, with players' wives collecting donations on Sunday. Through the Passback program, the U.S. Soccer Foundation will assist in the collection of soccer equipment and World Soccer Daily has donated 200 jerseys. Fans unable to attend the match can still donate through the Dynamo website.
"Sports is an important part of life for these kids," Luck said. "We wanted to make sure we did what we could do to at least bring that sports piece (of their lives) back to a level of normalcy in terms of the kids being able to go out and train and compete and do the things they really like doing. That's the genesis of the idea of trying to do what we can to help."
Sunday's game against United has also been designated as the "Championship Salute to the Championship Efforts of First Responders," and Houston police officers, firefighters and EMS workers and their families will be honored on the field before the game.
"They're putting their lives on the line during the crisis when people were supposed to evacuate, they're there for the people in distress," Holden said. "You don't really realize the responsibility they have to help out and that they're putting their lives at stake to help these people. It will be nice to get all those people out to our game on Sunday so they can be recognized by our fans and by our team and anyone affiliated by our organization."
The club is also recognizing the work that hospital volunteers, some of whom worked 48-hour shifts during the storm. They will also join the first responders on the field before the game.
"We said let's do something nice for them, give them and their families tickets for the game, let them come out and be honored at this match," Canetti said.
The rebuilding in the Houston area will take months and perhaps years, but the Dynamo are hoping they can help immediately in the healing process.
"Whatever way we can help out we want to do that," Holden said. "If it's just going out and signing autographs or hanging out and relating to people and letting them know that we're feeling their pain, we'll all do whatever we can to help out."
For online donations to the Dynamo's hurricane relief fund, please click here.
To donate via check or money order, please direct your payment, payable to Dynamo Charities, Hurricane Relief, to:
Dynamo Charities
Houston Dynamo
1415 Louisiana St., Suite 3400
Houston, TX 77002
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