Back to School: KSC Staff in Education

Our founder and Executive Director Jim Hardy is back to school this year as a teacher at Kensington Health Sciences Academy. Many know that Kensington Soccer Club in its early iterations provided free pick-up soccer Afterschool to high-school aged youth led by Jim Hardy and some of his dear colleagues. Over the past year Hardy was on sabbatical from his teaching job, helping to welcome 10+ new staff into the field and the office.

The addition of new staff over Jim’s sabbatical year has allowed for the expansion and formalization of soccer programs for all ages. Technical Director Tim Summiel was hired in October to bring his extensive experience and deep passion for the sport of soccer to improve our Travel and Recreation Programs. In November 2022, we launched our KSC Prep program for teens which was planned and executed by Jakeema Burton and Brianna Banks under the leadership of new Executive Program Director Barbyose Noisette. Simultaneously we were able to expand our Pick Up Soccer for Adults 18+ hosted at The Community Center for Visitation (and now Heitzman Recreation Center). Over the past school year we added new site supervisors to help facilitate our Out of School Time (OST) programs to our partner schools throughout North Philadelphia and are now looking forward to a new year of programming under the leadership of our new OST Director Christian Bailey. Even most recently, we hosted Walking Soccer for our Adults ages 45+. In addition to providing more opportunities for people across different age groups to have fun playing soccer, our new additions to the staff from within and outside our community bring important perspectives regarding our strategies for addressing the pressing social issues prevalent in our community. Furthermore, it increased our capacity to partner with other organizations, agencies, and schools to provide more access to soccer games and activities.

Amid the welcoming of new people into our community, we also provided professional development and opportunities to some of our former athletes and volunteers. For example, Carlos Acosta started playing soccer with us in high school, and served as a beloved coach in the early days of our Recreation program. Several of our adult athletes and KSC Alumnae have memories of playing for a team coached by Carlos. Over the past few years, he has continued to coach our Travel Teams (U8, U14, and more) and has coordinated the facilities throughout the city where we host our programs. Other examples of people who have served as coaches, athletes and volunteers with KSC and have become staff include Brianna Banks: coach, athlete, and Intervention and Prevention Coordinator; Jakeema Burton: Teen & Adult Programs Director; Carly Nájera: U14 Girls Coach and interim Volunteer Coordinator; and most recently, Asia Whittenberger: a coach who worked with us while pursuing her bachelors degree, and now serves as our Development Assistant at the helm of organizing fundraisers like our 50/50 Raffle and our event at Frankford Hall.

While many of you may know Jim is returning to the classroom, a variety of our other staff are also educators. From our Board Members to program directors to our wonderful volunteers, KSC’s work towards its mission has been propelled by professional educators. Jakeema Burton, Adult Men’s Team Coach Jim Breslin, will not only be firing up players on the soccer field, but they will be inspiring young minds in Philadelphia’s public schools. Furthermore, our staff also is full of people who have worked in the education system, including Soccer Athletes Value Education (SAVE) Coordinator Pat Hardy; Brianna Banks (as a school counselor); Barbyose Noisette (educator and counselor). Our initiatives and the integration of enrichment (workforce training; book distribution; teen civic engagement, and more) really honor the legacy of educators that are central to the foundation of KSC. As we celebrate Back to School, we also recognize that our programs use soccer as a vehicle to engage our program participants educationally, socially, and emotionally.

During a conversation with Jim Hardy, he was asked, “Why go back to teaching when you could retire and commit your time 100% to KSC?” Jim responded, “I teach because of my commitment to KSC…” You may think he is referring to the earlier days of KSC when athletes and volunteers were invited to join and coach “after school” pick up sessions. As our team augmented the number and duration of our soccer programs throughout the year, the cost to maintain affordability for our families has also increased. Jim continues to teach so, “he can continue to aid the expansion of access to quality and affordable soccer programming, without being compensated by KSC.” As such, this passionate educator plans to continue lead the development of KSC, while donating his salary back to the organization.

As we celebrate the beginning of a new school year, we also are entering our Fall season of programming. We have a variety of incredible educators and soccer professionals who help us advance our goal of uniting our community with soccer, but we will always need the help of volunteers to help sustain the quality of our participants’ experiences playing soccer with us. We invite you to get involved by volunteering, donating to our programs, or working with us.

Learn more about our staff here. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please reach out to our new Volunteer Coordinator, Leslie Quan.