Rock Island Today

Some of the best work done by this year's Augustana soccer players has taken place away from the field.

Last month, the Vikings women's and men's teams came together to make tie blankets for homeless citizens in the area, according to Augustana's Facebook athletics page.

Vikings women's team Captain Hannah Lohmeier told Rock Island Today that the squads – who have a combined 71 players – were looking for an activity that would combine team bonding with an opportunity to serve the community.

“Making tie blankets is something several players have been involved in in the past, and it seemed like the perfect way to combine these two desires,” Lohmeier said.

Lohmeier said she has been a part of an after-school program offered by Davenport's Salvation Army shelter. The program, which is run by the university's students through a service learning class, is focused on children in grades 1-6 at the shelter and is designed to gain an understanding of the roots and challenges of homelessness.

It was through that program that Lohmeier said she learned about an area of need and, with the help of an Augustana professor, she got in touch with a contact at the shelter to find out how the soccer teams could help.

“With colder weather coming, we decided as a program on making blankets for the residents at the shelter,” Lohmeier said.

Lohmeier learned from Sarah Hite at the local Salvation Army about homelessness statistics in the area. Hite told Lohmeier that last year, the shelter housed 412 people – 247 of whom were children – and served 40,000 people on a $1,000 monthly budget at the Family Service Center. According to www.SalvationArmyMyQC.org, the Family Service Center, located in downtown Davenport, gives food and “emergency or transitional housing” to families who are in need. The website has a set of criteria for what constitutes a homeless person, including living in cars, parks, abandoned buildings and other places not meant for living in; fleeing domestic violence in their housing situation; being evicted within a week from a private unit; being released from an institution after a stay of more than 30 days; and having no permanent dwelling to go to or resources to obtain one; among other scenarios.

Lohmeier said the soccer players spent a total of $630 of their own money on fabric to make 25 tie blankets for the shelter. The players got together and created the blankets in about two hours recently.

Lohmeier said she would like to see this kind of project continue as a way to tie the school with the community.

“This kind of activity is something that the players in the program would like to continue in future years, hopefully on an even larger scale,” Lohmeier said. “As a large community on campus, we felt a responsibility to find an area in which we could be involved in, and this was certainly a good starting point.”