DES MOINES, Iowa — Des Moines Refugee Support is a charity that supports refugee families in Des Moines. One way that the charity helps is by organizing and sponsoring refugee children playing soccer.

Over the weekend the organization was able to send 75 refugee children to a soccer tournament in Kansas City.

Alison Hoeman, the Founder and Executive Director of Des Moines Refugee Support, said that they are able to partner with the community to help refugee children play soccer.

“We have a great partnership with Des Moines Soccer Club so all of our kids get a great scholarship so we only pay 50% of the total and then they’re making up the 50% in other ways. Out of those kids, most of them are playing on the select team that they’ve had to try out and then they make the select team and their parents wouldn’t be able to pay for all of the things. And even more than that their parents wouldn’t be able to drive them to every single practice and every single game,” Hoeman said.

Hoeman said that it takes many volunteers to organize getting 75 children to a tournament.

“We rent four DART vans all the time just to get kids to practice and tomorrow I’ll be going to pick up two more 15-passenger vans so we will have six 15-passenger vans that are going plus we’ll have five personal vehicles that will have kids in them we’ve got coaches driving we’ve got team parents driving we’ve got volunteers driving,” Hoeman said.

To learn more about Des Moines Refugee Support visit their website.