Number of Participants: 90
Hours Donated: 2
Value of Time Served: $6,262
Event Amount Raised: $150
Organization / Team: Martha's Vineyard Regional High School Girls & Boys Soccer
Event Type: Health & Medicine
Activity: Soccer
School: Martha's Vineyard Reg. High Sch.
Date: September 27, 2025
Location:
100 Edgartown Road
Oak Bluffs, MA
USA
About:
Martha’s Vineyard Regional HS soccer programs, both boys and girls soccer, hosted the American Cancer Society’s Red Card Cancer Event on Sep 26th and 27th for their night games. Vineyard boys played against Falmouth HS, while the lady Vineyarders hosted non-league Archbishop Williams on Saturday night. We have always had a cancer awareness game in past seasons, but with so many affected by cancer, especially in our close-knit island community, we wanted to do something a bit more special than just wearing pink socks and ribbons. Our boys and girls soccer teams had back-to-back night games Friday and Saturday this season so we used those two home games to schedule our cancer awareness games. The players got all the fans and student section to wear Pink for the game, “Pink Out”. We partnered with All American Publishing, who generated local advertising through our local businesses to produce 200 FREE t-shirts for this event. The t-shirts, which highlighted the American Cancer Society’s logos, designed in black and pink, were a huge success. The players and coaches got a commemorative shirt, and all the female players got pink ribbons for their hair. Over 100 fans got t-shirts and held up ceremonial red cards to make a statement about supporting cancer research and patient services.
We read a statement before each game thanking our fans and highlighting the impact cancer has on our lives and the importance of supporting organizations like the American Cancer Society. The ACS has a built in event specifically for soccer teams/programs/schools called the “Red Card Cancer Event”. The materials are free, just reach out to Brian Casalinova at brian.casalinova@cancer.org to learn more. This year’s event was more of a raise awareness event, but next year I think we could make it a good fund raising event for the ACS. The head coach of Archbishop Williams, Gary Burke, was very accommodating and supportive of the festivities and happily joined in, as did both referees, our administrators, and of course fans. The players promoted the event on their individual and team social media pages. The players decided to write statements and post photos of those they support, sharing a personal and emotional element to the event. It was a great event all around and really not that difficult to plan. It was without a doubt the largest regular season crowd we have had in many, many years – the stands and all along the fence line was standing room only. Next year we hope to make it even better. We are happy to help other schools by sharing what we did if they are interested in doing something similar.
