Marmion makes positive impact during trip to Brazil

When Kevin O'Connor says "pass it on," he's not just referring to a way his Marmion boys soccer team moves the ball upfield.

He's referring to a life philosophy, which comes from a song that starts, "it only takes a spark to get a fire going."

O'Connor and players and families traveled to Brazil this summer with a number of boxes and suitcases full of tinder to get things started.

As a soccer excursion, one focus was firmly on training and competing in Brazil, the country that's won the World Cup six times and claimed the South American championship just this summer.

Marmion's players stayed in Natal, the capital city of Rio Grande do Norte in northeastern Brazil, 1,600 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. A city of better than 700,000, Natal borders on the Atlantic Ocean, which gave the Cadets a chance to play soccer on the beach and enjoy the ocean at the same time.

"The training was fabulous and the competition was very, very strong," O'Connor said.

O'Connor took a team of Marmion players to Brazil in 2004 for a mostly soccer-oriented visit. This time, there was more. In a country where poverty is everywhere if you're willing to look, the Cadets didn't have to explore much to find an outlet for their generosity.

The focal point came on visits to a pair of orphanages, both near Natal, where the team was based on its trip.

"All of a sudden, we saw kids who will never have opportunities like our kids have," O'Connor said. "The standards our children strive for and the things they dream for are things these children will never have. Our boys realized that they have a lot of blessings."

O'Connor rattled off a list of such blessings, and they make for hard reading, especially when you take into account that Marmion's players saw things first-hand.

"These kids aspirations to have some of the things our kids take for granted on an everyday basis, including having shoes to wear, having clean clothing, having vitamins to take, having toys to play with and school supplies to use."

The Cadets provided every one of those items to help ease the burden on the Lalle de Valle orphanage. The name means Valley of Lilies, according to O'Connor, but the real brightening moment came when the Cadets arrived with some needed items.

Marmion also visited Lar Feliz, which means Happy Home, according to O'Connor. There are 35-40 children in the orphanage, and they had some basic needs as well.

"They've been open 10 years and they've never had a washing machine," O'Connor said. "They did them by hand. They didn't have a TV. It got broken and nobody replaced it. And they were lacking tables and chairs at which to sit."

Marmion used money raised through a variety of fundraisers to fund the team's assistance to Lar Feliz by purchasing a washing machine, a new color TV, 3 tables and 24 chairs.

"The joy and appreciation, not only from the children but from the volunteers was overwhelming," O'Connor said. "I'm not afraid to say that I cried all the way home to our hotel from that orphanage. It was tears of hope for what I hope these kids someday have and tears that we tried to share some of the gifts that we have been blessed with."

It all moves back to O'Connor's "Pass it On" philosophy. The second line of that song is "and soon all those around, can warm up to its glowing." He lives by that philosophy in Illinois as well. For years any Mooseheart students who want to attend his summer soccer camps do so for free.

"When you have things that you can share with others and maybe improve part of their lives, I think it's our mission and our responsibility to pass on those opportunities," O'Connor said. "Whether it's inviting people to attend your soccer camp or providing soccer shoes or toys to less fortunate people, these are the things we need to do."

The question was put as to how much impact the trip had on the Marmion players. O'Connor said all on the trip recorded their experiences in a journal. At the end of the trip, every player wrote a summary of their trip.

"All of our kids commented on the conditions they saw and the realization of how fortunate they are in their life situation," O'Connor said. "Too often, we get caught up expecting things. Whether we deserve them or not, we expect them."

The trip to Brazil may be over, but the Cadets' involvement is not. The team, including the athletes' parents, decided on their return to continue to support both orphanages on an ongoing basis. In other words, they will continue to "Pass it On."

"What we witnessed first-hand is going to be much more than a fleeting memory," O'Connor.

That's the best news of the early portion of the soccer season.