Achieving Goals, At Home and Abroad

Banegas, who needed to petition to attend Dominion each school year because he lives outside the district, was turned down after his sophomore year -- forcing him to spend five unhappy weeks at Loudoun County High last fall before Fleming, Brewer and others at Dominion managed to persuade school officials to let him return. He said he now has a C-plus average in school.

Banegas's story is not uncommon. Students involved in the World Cup Soccer program note many benefits, including drastic improvement in grades, helping them prepare for the varsity soccer season in the spring and satisfaction in giving back to Latin America.

"No one wants to have to stay after school to catch up on homework and miss the games," said senior Michel Bascopade, who was born in Bolivia. "It's made me work harder to keep my grades up and learn the language."

According to Fleming, the failure rate among Hispanic males at Dominion fell 29 percent from 2004 to last year, and the absentee rate among Latino males has dropped from 5.8 percent to 5.1 percent.

"Helping others makes you less selfish," said Emerson Maradiaga, a native of Honduras who graduated from Dominion in 2007. Maradiaga said he had a 1.0 grade-point average before transferring to Dominion as a sophomore. "Hopefully we can be a role model for other people. Your heart just rejoices when you give back."

No one was happier than Fleming to learn about the reaction of officials in rural Costa Rica to the first shipment of soccer equipment from Dominion when it arrived in August.

Ana Chavarr¿a, the vice mayor of Quepos del Cant¿n de Aguirre, a town in southwestern Costa Rica where the average family makes $10 a day, said more than 600 children were on hand to open the packages of soccer uniforms, cleats, shorts, shin pads and trophies collected by the students at Dominion.

"It's incredible, the kids' reaction when they open the boxes and see all this equipment," Chavarr¿a said through an interpreter during a telephone interview. "The thing that is more touching is the hope these kids see."

In Sterling, Fleming's eyes lit up as he listened to Chavarr¿a talk about the impact Athlete to Atleta has made in her town. She told him she plans to send video footage of the children opening the packages.

"Wow," Fleming said. "That was powerful."

The program Fleming started three years ago now attracts students from more than 12 countries, including non-Spanish-speaking countries such as Ghana and Pakistan. The students involved say they hope to give equipment to each of their countries one day, and Fleming said he wants to expand the program to schools all over the region.

"We need a lot of little things that cost money, but it's really not that much when you think about the impact it's making on the young men in our community and in Latin America," Fleming said. "We now have something that is proven, and I would ask any school to try it."