The men’s soccer team wrapped up a semester of community service working with students in the Easton Community with a 2-1 win against Lehigh in the “Earn Your Spots” fundraiser game. The game was held at Cottingham Stadium last Friday and attracted close to a thousand people supporting the promotion of the literacy of students in the Easton area.
The book club started in 2020 and connects Lafayette with the surrounding community, emphasizing the importance of student literacy and providing positive role models for the younger generations.
The game was open to the public free of charge, and the team ended up raising $400 and received 500 books as donations to help further the club’s efforts next semester.
“It was a huge event for us,” junior midfielder Benji Grossi said. “We’ve been putting in a lot of work with the book club, so we wanted the turn out to be pretty big and it was.”
The team walked out onto the field with the students from Paxinosa and Cheston Elementary School to honor their participation in the book club program.
Rival Lehigh hit the back of the net on Friday first, scoring the only goal of the first half. Lafayette was able to come back in the second half with goals from senior midfielder Will Echeverria and junior forward Hale Lombard to secure the fundraiser win.
Grossi said that other sports teams from around the Lehigh Valley came to the game in support as well.
“After the game, the [elementary students] were screaming at us saying ‘hi’ because they knew us from when we go read to them,” Grossi said. “That was nice for them to interact with us outside of the classroom.”
Grossi believes that all of their efforts this semester with the Earn Your Spots Book Club will only help it grow in the future.
“What we did with the book club this spring is definitely going to boost it for the fall,” Grossi said. “I think we’ve gotten a lot more exposure, and I think around campus and around Easton, it’s being recognized more.”
