PORTLAND, Ore. — Five months into the Covid-19 pandemic, Jose Campos felt compelled to do more. He had his life in soccer — he’d worked with the Oregon Youth Soccer Association before, and had been a match official and a head coach at a Salem-area community college — but something was calling on him to contribute at a different level. For him, it was time to shift course.
“I always worked in soccer,” he says, “but this year I wanted to work in soccer in a way that helped the community.
Last August, Campos became the Program Development Manager of the Portland chapter of Street Soccer USA, an organization dedicated to “improv[ing] health, education, and employment outcomes for the most disadvantaged Americans by using sports …” That mission originally targeted programs for the homeless but has since expanded to other demographics.