Achieving Goals, At Home and Abroad

"If we don't get the Hispanic kids to participate," Peters said, "some of our [athletic] programs will fall by the wayside."

Leon Reed, an ESOL teacher at Woodbridge High School, put together a soccer team of mostly Latino students to play in recreational leagues in Virginia and Maryland.

"Being on the Woodbridge ESOL team made them special," Reed said. "The teachers, several counselors and assistant principals, and the principal himself were interested in the team. They'd ask the players on Monday how the game went and several came to the games. This was one of the main benefits I saw from the team. I still see carryover now in terms of general self-esteem and identification with the school."

Dominion, which has a student body that is 21 percent Hispanic, was searching for ways to engage Hispanic boys a few years back when Fleming went on vacation in Costa Rica. There, he came across a grassless piece of land in the middle of a town, on which young boys were playing soccer barefoot and with no equipment.

"As I drove by I was thinking, 'Wow, I have a lot of equipment at the school that kids leave behind and we just throw away,' " Fleming recalled. "I thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I could send these kids some of the stuff we take for granted?' "

It was the inspiration for World Cup Soccer.

The first shipment of equipment collected by Dominion students went out in June, and Fleming said they sent a second shipment of 3,000 reversible jerseys last month. The shipping costs are borne by Jay Harkey, the girls' lacrosse coach at Loudoun Valley High who also runs Tortuga Associates, a company that develops land in Latin America.

The program is paying dividends at Dominion, as well. Fleming points to Banegas as a prime example of what he hoped it would accomplish.

Banegas, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Honduras, failed his freshman year at Handley High School in Winchester, Va., then successfully petitioned the school system to transfer to Dominion. He said he frequently skipped classes and had a hard time fitting in as one of the few Hispanics at Handley.

"I couldn't communicate with the people," Banegas said. "I didn't like them, and they didn't like me. I got suspended two or three times, so I was like, 'I am failing. This is not for me.' "

Banegas said his grades began to climb at Dominion, where Fleming, Principal John Brewer and several teachers began to show an interest in his success. When Banegas joined the World Cup Soccer program that fall, he quickly made friends. He said it also kept him from the strong influence of gangs in Sterling.

"If you are in World Cup Soccer, you won't be out in the streets all the time," said Banegas, who said that he has never been in a gang but that he has friends and family members involved. "Once you start playing, you want school to end so fast so you can go play soccer instead of going home to push drugs."