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Feb 1, 2009 1:15 pm US/Central
Mankato Soccer Jerseys Find New Life Overseas
MANKATO, Minn. (AP) ―
Instead of being donated to a thrift shop or thrown away when the season's over, youth soccer jerseys in Mankato are finding new life overseas.
Kari Halbur, fundraising coordinator for Mankato United's youth soccer teams, said parents and board members were lamenting about uniforms being too many and too expensive when someone suggested recycling them. Problem was, no one knew of any organizations that collected and redistributed used soccer uniforms.
So Halbur did some searching online and came across Muhit Rahman's Web site: www.bangladeshrelief.org. Within hours of sending the e-mail, Halbur was on the phone with Rahman to coordinate a shipment.
Within days, the jerseys were on a transoceanic flight to Dhaka. And just days after that, United's familiar greens and whites were flashing through the rice fields and dirt lots of Bangladesh.
Rahman, the Cincinnati-based founder of the nationwide jersey donation program, believes that sharing uniforms can help make the world a better place.
"With all the stuff going on in the world and with the sort of divisions that exist," Rahman said, "I just believe that, in the karma of the universe, something good happens when people share."
Halbur calls it "a great program" and says "it should be an ongoing partnership."
Rahman, who was born and raised in Bangladesh, delivered the uniforms himself in early January, along with other donations he'd collected from across the U.S.
He gave one set of Mankato United uniforms to a small Hindu enclave in his birth village of Dolla. Rahman said that religious divides still exist between local Hindus and Muslims and that he wanted the donation to promote tolerance and acceptance.
The other sets of Mankato jerseys were given to a handball team at Panchagarh Government High School, located in the remote northern territories of Bangladesh. Rahman said his father was a headmaster at the school decades ago and that his "earliest memories as a human being date to that place."
"All the students were thrilled," Rahman said. "That very afternoon, they were out playing in their jerseys."
Titumir Sarkar, teacher and coach of the Panchagarh handball team, had this to say about the donation when reached by phone:
"Students (are) very glad for uniforms. ... Thanks to you. We enjoy."
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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