Highland Alum Collect 800 Gifts For Gloucester Twp. Families

GLOUCESTER TOWNSHIP, NJ — Three Highland Regional High School alum are responsible for helping raise the spirits of 11 struggling families this holiday season.

Together, they collected 802 presents for 11 families in Gloucester Township’s two school districts through a Christmas Adopt-a-Family drive.

“All of these 11 families have had a traumatic or troubling year,” Black Horse Pike Regional School District Superintendent Brian Repici said. “Some have lost a parent, many have lost their income, and some are just having a hard time keeping afloat.”

Repici’s cousin, Bill Shute, is a coach with the SJEB Rush soccer club based out of the Gloucester Township and Glassboro area. Five years ago, he began organizing the collection drive with members of his team.

In addition to teaching the technical and tactical aspects of the beautiful game, coaches teach about sportsmanship and camaraderie. Shute said he also wants to teach his players about life as much as possible over his 15-year career.

“I think it is the responsibility for coaches to teach about being good people as much as it is to teach about being good soccer players,” Shute said. “So a few years ago I worked with my wife to ‘adopt-a-family.’"

His wife, Susan Shute, is an elementary school teacher at Loring Flemming Elementary School. For the first three years of the drive, she would work with a school counselor to find a family they could help.

“While I felt good about the assistance we were able to provide, I felt as if something was missing,” Bill Shute said. “I wanted to help more people, but I needed more help. At that same time, things were changing with our soccer club.”

Shute coached the NJ Rush, which was merging with their longstanding rival, the South Jersey Elite Barons (SJEB). The idea behind the merger was simple: bring together two of the most effective clubs in South Jersey to be able to offer the highest level of soccer that the country has to offer to youth players, Shute said.

Shute knows about elite soccer. He has coached everything from recreational soccer to a team that won the U.S. Youth Soccer National Championship. SJEB Rush plays in the Girls Academy League, which is one of the most competitive leagues in the country.

But Shute also knows about life, and the merger provided him with the opportunity to put together an even larger effort to help the community.

“So last year, I put it out for the entire club to participate,” Shute said.

Susan Shute continued to work with the Gloucester Township K-8 Public School District to find families, and Bill Shute worked with Repici to find families in Highland, Timber Creek, and Triton regional high schools. They even got the players into the act.

“As coaches we often miss moments to elevate others — to take a situation and make it bigger and more memorable,” Shute said. “I wanted to do that for the kids and wanted them to feel the power of what they were participating in. In the past, parents would bring wrapped presents and put them in the back of my car and the kids wouldn't get anything out of it, so last year I worked with my cousin to have a Wrapping Event. During that event we brought together all the players, parents, and coaches to wrap the presents and organize them. It was a great event. We had food, music, wrapping — and it helped the kids to understand the point of the program.”

Even more changes were made this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Instead of having the wrapping event since we had to be responsible with social distancing, we encouraged our teams to wrap the presents on Zoom or by Facetime, and then send in video links or photos of them wrapping,” Shute said. “It wasn't the same, but by doing that we were able to share a nice video with all the club membership showing what they were able to accomplish.”

2020 also saw the addition of some players into leadership positions. Susan Shute taught the players how to use Sign-Up Genius. They organized the platform, and members used it to acquire presents.

“They were able to help with organization, communication, and the collection event where parents and players dropped off the gifts,” Bill Shute said. “It is great we were able to help so many people especially in an area in which we all grew up. My wife attended Loring Flemming and Highland High School and now teaches at the school she attended years ago. My cousin and I are both graduates of Highland High School, so it is great to be able to come back and help the community.”