Santa Monica, CA (PRWEB) June 18, 2014
love.fútbol spokesperson Anderson Hernanes (#18 on the Brazil National Football Team) was honored with a Golden Goody Award (like an Oscar for social good) at a World Cup Kickoff Los Angeles event last week by the Goody Awards (http://bit.ly/hernanesgoodyawards.) This special award is part of the Goody Awards #WorldCup4Good cause marketing campaign, which includes promoting love.fútbol throughout the World Cup (June 12-July 13, 2014). love.fútbol builds community soccer fields for young people who would otherwise not have safe places to play.
Local, national and global nonprofits and social enterprise leaders in the soccer world sent Hernanes virtual congratulations at this World Cup Kickoff Los Angeles event hosted by Sports and Social Change via VIDEO: http://youtu.be/ui7VA8nLhh0
Goody Awards Founder Liz H Kelly shared, “Because our mission is to inspire positive change by recognizing the good in the world, we love that Hernanes is from Brazil, plays football professionally in Italy for Inter Milan, and is supporting a US and Brazil-based charity love.fútbol to build soccer programs that transform lives.”
Along with promoting love.fútbol and rallying Brazil National Football Team players Willian Borgess and David Luiz to support this cause, Hernanes raised $32,328 for this nonprofit organization. Fans were encouraged to donate online thru Prizeo for a chance to win a trip to the 2014 World Cup Brazil and meet this global football star and his teammates. Hernanes also matched the first $25,000, bringing the total to over $57,000 to build soccer fields for those in underserved communities. In the campaign promotional video, Hernanes shared, “I believe in love.fútbol to transform people’s lives.”
Drew Chafetz, love.fútbol CEO and Co-Founder, is currently in Brazil, partnering with communities to build soccer fields, which have proven to have lasting impacts on the residents, particularly young people. Since 2006, love.fútbol has completed 16 soccer field projects in Guatemala and Brazil. love.fútbol believes a safe place to play can be the last stand before gangs, drugs and despair – and won the “Sport for a Better World” competition sponsored by Ashoka Changemakers. To get involved, visit http://lovefutbol.org.
During this event, Corey Williams, Head Coach at the US Soccer Foundation, congratulated Hernanes via video, saying, “I think it’s incredible the work you’re doing with love.fútbol, just building the soccer fields down there in Brazil as part of the legacy program is an incredible thing to do so congratulations on the Golden Goody Award, and well done man.”
Congratulations to Hernanes via video also included Eric Hubbard (Jovenes Inc and Street Soccer USA), Rumi Kaibara (Special Olympics International who congratulates Hernanes in Japanese), Brian Szcerbinski (Special Olympics Southern California), David Joseph (America Scores LA), Aaron Kaufman (America Scores LA Board Member and Sony Playstation), and Eva and Marco from Italy who does cheers in English, Italian and Portuguese.
Fans are encouraged to tweet #GoodyAwards with #WorldCup4Good to honor their heroes and good deeds during the tournament. The Goody Awards also honored social good leaders in the soccer space at this event with Hero Goody Award tags and tweeted #TeamGoody Awards to all of the nonprofits and social enterprises involved, including: America Scores, KorovaDTLA, LACMA, love.fútbol, Pass It Forward Soccer, Senda Athletics, Special Olympics Unified Sports, Sports and Social Change, Sports Studio, Street Soccer USA/ Jovenes, Inc., and streetfootballworld. http://goodyawards.com/worldcup4good
About
Goody Awards™ facilitates social good awards via social media, special awards and cause marketing campaigns, similar to the million$ advertising campaigns that we managed while working for Fox Interactive Media/MySpace. Anyone can tweet an award to recognize someone doing good using 5 Twitter hashtags: #EcoGoody, #HeroGoody, #GoodDeedGoody #TeacherGoody, #TeamGoody), and each hashtag counts as a vote towards Goody Award of the Month and Year. To help companies show appreciation for employees, volunteers and fans, the Goody Awards also offers Pay Good Forward Services for brands that include working with companies to build recognition programs, custom awards and cause marketing campaigns. http://goodyawards.com
