Soccer Festival Organized To Promote Diversity in Evanston

Evanston is an active city. From the devoted members of the Evanston Running Club to the year-round traffic at the city’s parks and fitness center, everyone seems to be doing something to stay fit.

The game of soccer is common among those activities, and Evanston has no shortage of groups that play the game for fun.

But one aspect of soccer’s popularity in the city caught the attention of Elliott Hurtig, an Evanston native who now teaches and coaches soccer at Deerfield High School.

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“I’d be playing in James Park - the home of Evanston soccer - with a group of guys, and we’d walk around and notice games of all Jamaicans and another with only those from Mexico or El Salvador and another where it was only Polish players,” said Hurtig. “I thought it was ironic that we live in a community that celebrates diversity all the time, but even in a game like soccer - a game everyone plays - we are all separated.”

So enters the idea for the 3 on 3 Soccer Festival, a first-of-its-kind Ridgeville Park District event set for Saturday, July 18 at Kamen East and Kamen West Park. The all-day event will include 3-on-3 soccer games, live music and food trucks.

“It will be a great event, and we are hoping to have it grow and grow and become an annual tradition,” said Hurtig. “We all love the game of soccer, so it will be great to bridge the cultures, play against each other and in the end play with each other.”

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Hurtig, chairman of the festival, has reached out to the various soccer clubs in and around Evanston and has spread the word through churches and in the neighborhoods.

“The guys I am playing with are very excited about it,” he said.

Three different age brackets will be organized for the soccer portion of the event, 30+, 40+ and 50+. Games will be 20 minutes, but scores will not be kept.

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The cost is $50 per team, which benefits the Ridgeville Cultural Development Foundation, a non-profit organization “dedicated to supporting RPD programming by sponsoring public cultural events, providing scholarships to children for Ridgeville camps and classes, and funding capital improvement projects for Ridgeville parks and facilities,” according to its website.

“We all win that way since we are helping the good cause and creating a platform to celebrate the diversity that exists in Evanston,” Hurtig added.

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