Players who competed in the Hispanic Coalition Soccer Tournament played on the Orange High School baseball field in Central Avenue Playground during the 12 Hours of Community Service Back to School giveaway event on Saturday, Sept. 9, sponsored by Mayor Dwayne Warren and the Orange City Council, take a break in the action.
ORANGE, NJ — Orange Board of Education member Cristina Mateo and the Hispanic Coalition hosted a soccer tournament at the Orange High School baseball field at Central Avenue Playground on Saturday, Sept. 9, during the 12 Hours of Community Service event.
“We put the soccer tournament together. We had about eight different teams coming from three different ages. It was successful. We had no complaints. Everything was done, based on rules and regulations, and whatever the city told us to do, that’s what we did. I’m very happy. This was a very successful event,” said Mateo on Saturday, Sept. 9.
In addition to serving on the BOE, Mateo is president of Orange’s Hispanos Mano A Mano organization; she added, “We were also over here with the other part of the event doing face-painting, helping out. We had some people helping with the cooking and we made sure the parents knew about what was going on today. It’s still packed. We still have the basketball going on and the last soccer game is being played right now.”
When it comes to promoting public service and education, Warren said he was glad to have an organization working in town whose name literally identifies it as a “hands-on” organization. “Mano a Mano” translates from Spanish as “hand to hand.”
“The field was packed with soccer players from ages 5 all the way up to 15 years old,” said Warren on Saturday, Sept. 9. “Tournaments going on, training going on, people just having a good time. I got a chance to take picture with them and kick the ball a little bit, so that was a good time, too.”
Both Warren and Mateo agreed that athletics and education go hand in hand, so it made perfect sense to present sporting events during the back-to-school event.
“This is beautiful,” said Mateo. “This is one of the city’s biggest events, because it involved the children and involved giving away some of the basic needs for school and, being that this is the beginning of the school year, the children need a lot of supplies and the mayor made sure that every family in the city of Orange has what they need, in order to have a successful school year. They gave out book bags uniforms, shoes and plenty of supplies, so that was a very good thing.”
The soccer tournament also gave Warren the chance to discuss the differences between “futbol,” as soccer is known around the world, and American football. The mayor stood with two members of the Orange High School football team that had racked up a 47-6 win against Ferris High School in Jersey City earlier that day.
“They put the time in, in the summer time, worked out with their coaches, put (time) in the weight room and now they went on the field and showed what they did today,” Warren said of the football players, adding that the same goes for all of the futbol players who participated in the Hispanic Coalition Soccer Tournament.
Former Orange Police Officer Orlando Soto, who serves as public relations director for the Hispanics for Progress of the Oranges and Essex County, agreed with the mayor.
He noted the timeliness of the tournament with regard to the ongoing national debate about the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival implemented by former President Barack Obama. The East Orange City Council recently approved a proclamation supporting DACA at the council’s Sept. 11 meeting.
“Our first back-to-school board meeting is going to be this Tuesday coming up, Sept. 12, and we’re also going to talk a little bit about DACA,” said Mateo on Saturday, Sept. 9, adding that anyone who saw the Hispanic Coalition Soccer Tournament at Central Playground also saw the flesh-and-blood reality of DACA and the so-called “Dreamers” it protects.
“All you see is American kids; unfortunately, we have a lot of American kids that qualify for DACA,” Mateo said. “We also have a lot of kids that came here because their parents brought them here. They’re the ones that actually qualify for DACA. And we have a lot of parents that also qualify for DACA that had children after they came in and they became adults. They (are) basically working and have a family and they need to provide and they’re not able to either renew their DACA documentation or start the process. We do have a lot of them right here right in this park.”
Mateo also reiterated Warren’s call to community service, saying, “Please come out to the board meetings. It’s very important for people to know what’s going on at the schools,” said Mateo. “If you have anything to say, if you want to participate in anything, come out. … There’s a lot of stuff going on. So just keep yourself informed.”
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