OUR STORY
Legacy City Heights began out of a simple love for playing soccer, and a desire to see our diverse community united. In early 2014 we spent many evenings driving from park to park in the Mid-City San Diego area looking for green space and public goals to play soccer with. We were never able to find those things so we purchased our own set of large pop-up goals, and brought them to Colina Park in City Heights to play. That first evening, we had a small group of people join in and play with us. There was a lot of excitement about having actual goals and they asked if we could come back later in the week to play again. Before, when we had taken those evening drives through the neighborhood, we had seen kids playing soccer in empty parking lots lit up by street lights using spare shoes or trash cans as goals. With that in mind, we decided we would show up weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays evenings. As people started to see that we were committed to being there each week, the number of players continued to grow. Since 2014, our weekly evenings in the park have grown to be much more than just pick-up games of soccer. We have an average of 40 people, from all different backgrounds who come together for the love of soccer and community.

COMMUNITY
City Heights is one of the most ethnically diverse and densely populated neighborhoods in the city of San Diego. Many of its residents are low-income immigrants and refugee families. It is a neighborhood that lives and breathes soccer, and its the one language most everyone has in common. Through our Tuesday and Thursdays in the park, we began to quickly meet a lot of new friends. Many who had recently arrived with their families as refugees from various countries, some who had immigrated in recent years, and those who had lived in City Heights their whole lives. Our time spent playing together developed a safe place where people began to share their stories. The natural thing to do was to get together and talk about creating a platform where players could feel that their voices were being heard and their cultures celebrated. In 2016 the City Heights World Cup was born.

CELEBRATION
The City Heights World Cup is a tournament created to celebrate the cultural diversity of City Heights and to provide a fun, affordable soccer program which fosters community, develops individuals and team skills, and empowers youth for the future.  The First Annual City Heights World Cup represented over 15 countries within 9 teams, and had upward of 150 people in attendance. We were shocked by the turn out of the “grassroots” tournament that was hosted on the field of a nearby elementary school. It was organized with the help of our youth participants who formed their own teams from the park to participate. In 2017, for our Second Annual CHWC, we were able to reserve the Colina Park field, which allowed the number of participating teams to grow from 9 to 12. We experienced significant support from community partnerships which included a variety of churches, organizations, and businesses. We are continually growing each year, and the City Heights World Cup has become an anticipated event that the community looks forward to.

Beyond our annual tournament, we realized the need to provide consistent year-long support to the youth and families participating in the soccer program. Many of whom are affected by generational poverty and are struggling to assimilate to life in the United States.

 LEGACY
While there is a significant demand for athletic enrichment programming that provides a safe space for youth and families to play organized competitive soccer, there is also a need for educational support, college-prep assistance, and job development. By providing homework help and step by step job assistance, we hope to see youth and their families have their dignity restored as God intended. Through helping with physical needs, we hope that it will open up doors to share the Gospel and to show people that God cares for and loves the hungry, the widows, the orphans, the fatherless, the sojourner, and those who are broken and weary hearted.