ABOUT ME
Hi, my name is Zander, I am a high school Senior living in New York City. I have always been someone who loves to bring people together, and the ways that I enjoy doing that are through soccer, volunteering, research and writing.
​
Soccer has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. I’ve played organized soccer for thirteen years, and some of my very first memories are of watching Arsenal FC, my favorite team. Arsenal are based in London, where I was born and lived before my family moved to New York City. What I love most about soccer isn’t just the game itself, but its unmatched ability to unite people across cultures, languages, and backgrounds. On many occasions in my life, soccer has helped me break through barriers to create lasting friendships that otherwise would have seemed impossible.
Writing is another passion of mine, and it’s how I make sense of the world. Sometimes that means reflecting on the role of sports and community foundations, other times it’s exploring classic literature and analyzing its echoes on modern culture through my blog. For me, writing has always been my way of musing on what fascinates me, sparking conversation, and sharing ideas beyond myself.
​
Volunteering ties all of this together. I’ve found immense joy in giving back to my community, from running events and cleaning up after at the public park near my house, to coaching soccer for kids in Chinatown at the very first club I ever played for, to teaching basketball to children with special needs in the gym of my old school. These experiences remind me of how even the smallest act of encouragement can change a child’s day, while in turn, giving me a sense of fulfillment and purpose.
I started the Community Playmaker Project as a way to fuse these three passions into something larger, a movement that brings people together through harnessing fandom to make the world a better place.
ORIGIN STORY
The Community Playmaker Project presents my learnings from researching, interviewing and volunteering for the charitable foundations and community departments associated with the major sports teams in New York City. I undertook this project in order to better understand how sports teams generate positive impact through the connection they make with their fans and local communities.
The impetus for the Community Playmaker Project came from the extraordinarily positive experiences I gained through my three Zander’s Run half-marathons, through which I raised over $25,000 to benefit the Arsenal Foundation’s amazing Coaching For Life program, which works to improve the lives of the children in the Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan. Za’atari is the largest camp for refugees of the Syrian War and the second largest refugee camp in the world. By raising money for the Arsenal Foundation, meeting its leaders and volunteering for their Arsenal In The Community program in North London, I saw the amazing ways in which Arsenal FC actively seeks to improve the lives of those in its community. This inspired me to learn about how teams in my own community of New York City approach creating positive social impact, help them make a difference, and try to boost teen fan volunteership through promoting participation in their activities.