With the first programming day of the new year out of the way, it was time to move on to our second day after a very short turnaround time.

While the previous day’s sessions had taken me to the south of Manila, the second day brought me northeast to the province of Rizal.

Twenty-one young athletes freshly dismissed from school were waiting to learn footy the Around the Worlds way. I was in good company for the day, as for the first time in over a year, my mother would be joining me to carry out an international session. Our last one together came during a weeklong run in Guyana all the way back in 2024. Needless to say, I was as excited to have her here as she was excited to be here. Plus, it was a bonus for the kids as they’d be able to experience mom’s arts program, too.

After an hour-long trip, we finally reached Taytay, Rizal. Stepping through the beautiful front gate of Destiny’s Promise Children’s Home, I was greeted ever-so-warmly by my contact, Joan, who had graciously set up the session several weeks back. This actually wasn’t my first visit to Destiny’s Promise, either, as I had held a free program there back in August of 2019. Those circumstances were different, though, as that session had fielded only seven players – a bit reflective of the kids’ interest in football at the time.

I was overjoyed that just six years later, we had over 20 kids eager to play the sport and learn the basics of the game. Before making our way to Destiny’s Promise’s covered basketball half-court (where we would be carrying out the day’s session), I took a couple minutes to chop it up with Ma’am Joan.

“Well, last time I mainly worked with older kids,” I shared.

“Ah….” she said, pausing. “Maybe not, then… because now we mostly have younger kids,” she finished.

“No worries, Ma’am Joan!” I exclaimed, just excited to bring the joy of footy to some bright new faces.

Some of the older kids grabbed my soccer balls and equipment to bring down the winding path to the court, while I rounded out the group with my mother at the rear.

“Okay guys, ready for some football?” I said. “Yes!!!!” they all screamed in unison.

I set some clear expectations about behavior and what I needed from the kids – putting an emphasis on their attention, energy, and respect, as always. Then, I led them through a quick warmup to get the blood flowing. After all, they’d been cooped up in their classrooms for the entire day, so playtime was more than needed for most of them. The kids smiled and giggled all throughout our warmup drill, as I instructed them to run, jump, shuffle, and stretch – only to be capped off by some meditative breathing.

Finally good to go, we kicked things off with our listening drill, which I ran by myself and then afterwards, by some of the kids. I had plenty of helpers available, like an older boy named JP among several others. In between relay races and our 1v1 drill, one of the younger boys raised his hand, posing a question.

“May prizes mamaya, Kuya?” he asked, a bit timidly.

“Oo naman!” (Of course!) I answered.

He paused, optimistically cautious. “For all of us?” he asked.

“Yes!” I replied.

“Yay!!!!” screamed him and his compatriots.

Luckily, I still had some leftover bags from the elementary school programs the day before, so I was able to use them as prizes for ulo o kamay. The kids, as always, loved this one. A trio of girls won our first round, while some young bucks won our second. Introducing elements of leadership into our programming, I made sure one of the winners from the first round ran our second iteration. A tall girl named Precious was kind enough to do so.

When all was said and done, each participant stepped forward to claim a new football, before pivoting to the side to allow Ma’am Joan to pen their names on them.

“Thank you, Kuya!” they said, with skin-stinging high fives.

I smiled, but still, those weren’t the best thank you’s of the day.

Because as I got in our Grab (Filipino uber) to head back home, my mother, fresh off of a post-arts program high, turned to me and smiled.

“Thank you so much for bringing me, Steve,” she said. “It brings me so much joy.”