Club volleyball players meeting local, global needs through Serve City Serves community program

Serve City Serves is an exciting new community outreach program of Serve City Athletics of Carol Stream that aligns closely with the organization's three-pronged motto of Love, Relationships and Excellence.

Serve City Serves provides young athletes on Serve City's club volleyball teams the opportunity to help those less fortunate by giving back to the local community or to national or international causes, an important new tool in Serve City's mission to train athletes to reach their highest potential both on and off the court. Players grow in life skills and character as they perform community service that impacts their hearts, minds and values.

So far in 2016-17, Serve City teams and families have contributed over 20 hours of hands-on service and touched the lives of numerous children, youth and families in need. Serve City's Elgin 14 Smack, 14 Blue, 13 Smack and 12 Smack teams packed 19,440 meals on December 19 at the Feed My Starving Children facility in Schaumburg. These meals will feed 53 malnourished kids for a year in the African nation of Malawi. Feed My Starving Children is an international nonprofit that supplies nutritionally complete meals specifically formulated for malnourished kids.

Serve City's West Chicago 17 Smack team helped process 7,320 pounds of personal hygiene products for needy neighbors in northern Illinois on December 21 at Northern Illinois Food Bank's suburban processing center in Geneva. Northern Illinois Food Bank is a nonprofit hunger-fighting organization that serves 13 counties in the state.

Serve City's Downers Grove 14 Smack boys team and West Chicago 18 Smack boys team each packed thousands of meals at Feed My Starving Children at its processing facility in Aurora.

The organization's Elgin 13 Smack team gathered and donated dozens of care packages for homeless shelters to distribute to homeless families and individuals in the Chicago area.

For more information on Serve City Serves, contact jsmith@servecityathletics.org or call (630) 456-1717.