Well well well I am still alive. Things have been crazy these past few weeks. We have traveled so much and I am finally done catching up for the most part with Filleo stuff, house work, and just life.
Check this out though. Filleo is holding a 4v4 tournament in conjunction with Pride SC in Columbus. Check out the registration form and I hope everyone can come. All proceeds go to children in need. Here is a message from the Pride SC Director.
Coaches, Players and Parents:
Pride Soccer Club is hosting the second annual Filleo 4v4 Soccer Tournament on July 24th. I have attached the information/registration form. The deadline to register is July 9th. There will be youth, high school and adult divisions. Every registered player will receive a T-shirt and proceeds from T-shirt sales go to Filleo Co., which is a non-profit headed-up by Jed Zayner of the Columbus Crew that helps children in need.
If you want the registration form just email us at jedi@filleo.com and we will shoot you over a registration form.
We are looking forward to a great turnout!
The auction is up and running. Check it out here http://bit.ly/9qZ0Sf . Hopefully everyone enjoys the merch on there. This is our first annual auction. We will definitely do it again. The shorts that are up for auction were worn in our championship season 2008 and signed personally by guys. Same as the ball and the book were signed by the championship team. Enjoy and all proceeds are tax deductible and go to a good cause. Check out our new website at www.filleo.org . Also, become a fan of what we are about on facebook http://bit.ly/b3s3P1 . Also, if you want to join our community on http://www.change .org/filleo .
So, we are starting the auction next week. We will be holding it on Ebay's non profit auction site called "Mission Fish". This is so fun, haha. I am getting so excited because more and more things are happening with Filleo. This online auction will be held each year and hopefully we will have bigger and better items. For this year we will be having a jersey of mine signed by the whole team, a personally signed jersey of mine, training kit signed by whole team, player's game worn shorts and signed by them, and many more.
We hope to see you all there. All money will go to children in need. Yes, that is 100% will go to children in need. The cool part about it also is that we are holding a Filleo Project in August in Columbus, Ohio and the money from this will partly go towards those kids.
On another note I am chilling here in Columbus. The team flew out to Dallas today and they play tomorrow. Looking forward to our first 2-0 start ever. I just finished season 8 of one of my favorite shows "Smallville". If you think about how much I love talking about super powers and super humans you could get a clue at how much I love Smallville. I mean some people say I look like Clark Kent. Well, to be honest I think I just may say it; hoping that I do.
Maddie is sleeping next to me. This week I am going to endeavour in buzzing Maddie's fur. I picked up a hair clipper yesterday and I am going to try it. I think paying $50 on a haircut for an animal is way too much money. I may not do it that well, but I will do it good enough. If any of you want a cheap haircut for your pups, let me know. We will see how I do with Maddie in a week. Yes, I will put up pics. It may just be one big travesty. Talk to ya soon.
Thank you to everyone for the help with Filleo. Very soon, like a week or so, we are doing an online fundraiser. We will be signed jerseys from a bunch of the guys on the Columbus Crew up on e-bay. We will have signed posters also. I need your help to spread the word when I post next week when they are up. The more money we raise, the more money for children in need. Again through us 98% of ALL money coming in will go to children in need. No one on our staff gets paid and we do not have any monthly bills. The other 2% will go towards posters, packaging, postards, etc...
Secondly, I want to thank our newest member of the Filleo team, Greg. We appreciate your support with Filleo. Greg took his shirt to Belize on a recent trip. Greg has been working very hard to help Filleo in his free time. When we either have interns or volunteers we send welcome packages to them. Greg thank you so much for your effort and help.
If you have purchased Filleo shirts in the past send us a picture of you in it. Take the picture in a cool place and we will put it up on the blog no matter if you are an intern/volunteer or not.
We are moving along. I have some great things to announce for Filleo., thanks to www.foxoverdog.com. We are coming out with a whole new and redesigned website for the summer. We should have a homepage up around a week or two. On our website we will have stories of our past projects, a live news feed to stay up to date with Filleo, also what we do.
We have a couple trips coming up. We are having one big project in downtown Columbus the second or third week of August. Then January 7-13, 2011 we are traveling to Monterrey, Mexico for a week long project. We are so excited for both. We are extra excited for Mexico as it will be our first trip out of country. We are filling up spots quick, but if you want to come just email us at jedi@filleo.com. Each person coming will be given all information and send out support letters to raise the money to go. Also, you will receive a fan page of your own on www.change.org where you can raise support very easily.
Change.org is a non profit website for social networking. Join us at the link on the top of the blog and help build our community. As a partner in our community you are able to create your own fan page and raise money for Filleo and help raise awareness. Also, as I said you can raise money for the trips we go on.
We are still accepting a couple more volunteers/interns for this summer of 2010. If you are willing to join the fun email us and we will get the final approval.
Lastly, we will be holding a car washathon this summer to raise awareness and raise money for kiddies. We will have fellow Crew player's helping out and many other volunteers. I will keep everyone up to date for when we will do this. Again email us if you want to help out.
Well, we love you guys and look forward to seeing more of the Filleo community. One Cause. One Love.
On back to our trip to New Orleans. I hope you all enjoyed the "dagwood", I did. All in all it still tasted great. I kinda want to make a rap out of it. haha. I know, I know save my sick skillz for another time.
After our clinic where I perfected the log roll, Emily got a 28 mph shot from a kid, Jared found a sick vantage point for videos, Jared Montz showed the kids how sweet soccer bowling is, and Katie did an amazing job at registration and clean-up.
We then brought them inside and had them sit down and listen up. Jared montz gave is famous "Believe in it" speech, encouraging the kids to go after their dreams. Then he passed it on to me and I did my famous rap that incorporated a sick b-boy breakdown then transitioning into a windmill on the ground. Ha I wish I did that, maybe next time.
I talked to the kids about how I grew up being the youngest child in a single mom household. How I went to sleep and woke up hungry most days. Also, that trophies and awards have no real importance. What we should desire for people to remember us by: is our kindness, work ethic, generosity, and most importantly love we give to others. I gave a jersey of mine to a player that was not the best, but exemplified those qualities the most.
We then gave out Imazine watches for the kids. They are these sweet and sporty watches that the kids can wear no matter chill or play (www.ionwatchusa.com). We also were able to bring soccer balls, basketballs, pumps, school supplies, and soccer gear for the kids.
We bought a bunch of the stuff at a Kmart shopping spree the day we got there. Super fun shopping for kids that do not recieve many things that often. We ended with some pictures and we signed some autographs for them. We also asked them to sign posters of ours just in case they become famous one day.
It was an amazing clinic and an even better experience for the Filleo Staff. There is nothing better than giving your energy, efforts, and money to help those less fortunate. We were all made to do this.
But, after all this we ended up going to Drago's to eat. Whoooohooo so good. They have chargrilled oysters that are soooo amazing. I had a shrimp po boy and it was good. But, these oysters were some of the best food I have ever had. A must do if you go down. Then we had a little bedate ( this is how I pronounced it, I know a bedate is a toilet that cleans a yuuhooo). Umm a beignet yes that is it. It is a fried piece of dough. Honestly I dig a funnel cake much more, sorry New Orleans folk.
Check out the video below, and yes I actually let them do this to me, I do not know why. By the way he blew powdered sugar on me, a whole lot of it.
On January 9th at the clinic we had some funny kids. Let me tell you about some of our stories.
Here I am preparing the kids for sharks and minnows and I was trying to get them to learn how to dribble in different ways. I am telling the kids to dribble and do different kinds of cuts and fakes and then I tell them to sit down. Romalis is one of the older kids of the group- the kid with the blue socks and in the front of the first pic...Romalis chimes in as we are sitting down, "I ain't fit for dis." His timing was impeccable as it was completely quiet and the rest of the kids seem to wait on his funny words. The kids and I just busted out laughing!
Next, and the funniest of all the comments. Emily, oh sweet Emily, oh so pure in heart, haha. She had Romalis's group and she said they were being very silly, in her words. Well, at one point she yelled, "Keep your balls to yourself!!" and the kids were rolling on the ground repeating what she said to each other. You could imagine a woman coach saying that to a bunch of 13 year olds who are already off in their own world. Well, even if you are not 13, it still makes me laugh every time. Thanks Emily for your awesome story and all your help!
Waking up in the morning was pretty hard. Yesterday was pretty exhausting and well when you walk outside and it is 28 degrees it is not fun either. I mean, come one, we came to New Orleans for a Filleo Project. We were not planning to come here for a nice beautiful trip, we came to help the kids. But, in the back of our minds we did think, "Sweet! We get to spend a few days in New Orleans in warmer weather." Well, "Earth to Jed!" it is not warm out here- it is freezing!
I was glad though that the day started with a laugh. Jared Emily Montz who were our drivers and host family were having trouble with the defroster. When they tried to turn the dial to defrost the dial broke and they could not defrost the front windshield. So, we are sitting there watching Jared and Emily use their hands and rags to wipe the windshield down so he could see while he was driving. They are not used to cold weather at all. We fixed it with pliers the next day though, atta boy RadioU Jared.
We pull up to our event at an inner city school and see a sweet soccer field that has the new turf on it. Also, there are about 30 kids playing on it. I immediately thought I was in the movie "The Big Green." The things these kids said only added to my perspective, oh what a laugh, but I will get to that later.
The night before our big event Jared Montz had us all sit down and we planned out the event to a "T." It took a couple of hours, but we thank him for wanting this event to go as smooth as possible, which it did.
We set up the table and all the kids start to bring over their registration forms we sent out to them. We thank God so much because come six days before the event we had 0 kids registered, yes ZERO. But the day of our event we had around 30 kids show up. For an event planned with few staff and little time it was a HUGE success. We brought them all in and separated them into groups. We had stations for the kids to go to every 12 minutes. Then at the end we would play a big scrimmage.
My station was sharks and minnows. It's my favorite because I love the "log roll." Yes, it is a sweet technique in this game. All the kids get on a line and they have to dribble across to a line that is about 20 yards away. The curve ball is that you have to get past the shark-- ME. I had to kick their ball away and I did that with the "log roll." I would get on the ground and stretch my hands and legs as far as I could go and roll at the kids. There was only one kid who beat this dangerous roll and he flicked it over me and ran. Touché my friend! Touché!
We also had a shooting station with a radar gun that showed the mph that the kids kicked the ball. This was a huge hit, thanks Emily. Jared Montz did a fun passing game that he made into soccer bowling; I never had seen it before but will use it now, thanks Jared. Then a volunteer named Grant helped with World Cup. That is a game where each child gets a partner and those teams pick a country they will be named after. They then try to score against the other teams on one goal, let's just say "CHAOS" but still very fun chaos.
We then ended with a scrimmage that was pretty crazy because the field was 40X25 and we played 11 on 11. Well, I kinda cheated and threw on a couple extra kids and played 13 on 11, that may be the reason why my team won 2-0, sorry Jared...
Here are some pictures from our clinic, I will have a video of the clinic posted in the next couple of days and part 2 of our day Saturday to follow after that. Thanks for spending time with me.
This is a highlight video from our first official Filleo Project Day. Hope you enjoyed our day there, because we certainly did. Thank you for all your support, appreciate it. There is a snippet of info in here with what happened in New Orleans when Katrina hit. There is a lot of video of the houses there. I wanted everyone to see how there is still so much work to do.
Part 2 of Friday January 8th, 2010 Filleo Project: New Orleans
0 comments Posted by Jed Zayner at 1:19 PM
On to lunch now and a little break. I’m thinking Chipotle, Pei Wei, or maybe Quizno’s. Check that iPhone, and Oh snap! There are none of those in New Orleans. Haters. So, we end up getting the next best thing: KFC/Tacobell. We had some good rest and well some decent food.
We met up with T-roy and he gave us, in his words “I have something sweet for you J, it is a fame glorious job of packing up a library in trailers and moving them to the new school.” After some funny moments at the RSD (Recovery School District) he took us to the High School where the trailers were. We found Miss Celeste packing up her books. We ended up taking the next four hours packing, organizing, taping, and labeling books in boxes. We had Katie color coding everything with the dewy decimal system. Shoot whatever that is, still trying to figure it out.
We were able to finish Celeste’s entire week’s worth of work in four hours. They have been in these trailers for some time now and apparently she is moving from a small 800-900 sq. ft. library to a 4000 sq. ft. library. There are pictures before we helped and pictures after.
I have also put at the bottom Celeste’s email that she sent me on Monday when she came into work and saw what we did.
“Jed...thank you, thank you, thank you so MUCH. I walked into the library this morning, and I couldn't believe how amazing it looked in here. I can't stop smiling! I am so excited right now- because I can actually think clearly enough to get some serious work done now that everything is in order. Setting everything up in the new library is going to be a cinch now. If ya'll ever come back to the city, please come by our new school and visit!
Please thank everyone who was here- I remember all of you, but I'm terrible with names- Jed; your wife, the teacher and graduate student; Jared Montz & Mrs. Montz, (whose mother is a librarian); The radio personality from Radiou...(was his name Jared too?). Please let everyone know how thankful I am for all of the work that was done here last week, and also how much easier my life is going to be because of it...I feel like going out and doing something nice for somebody!”
Filleo and what we are about is more than a shirt and it is more than the services we bring. We are a unified body of people who stand for One Cause and who live for One Love. This email makes us at Filleo so happy, not as much because she is so happy and thankful for what we have done, but because of her last line.
“I feel like going out and doing something nice for somebody!”
If our love is contagious we have done our part. We hope and pray that people will catch onto our love and do something with it.
I replied to her, “Remember to pay it forward, as you already are being a teacher, but all we ask is if you could do something special for someone else.”
We hope you will join us in pursuing a life of love each day towards others.
So, this guy Troy aka T-roy did a great job in setting us up in places that needed help. He is from The Recovery School District in New Orleans. This video is one of many quotes that made us laugh when we were around him.
Check out his website at : http://www.rsdla.net
What a great trip! Filleo, my non profit organization, just got back from our first project community service outside of Ohio. We went down to New Orleans and it was such a rewarding trip. This project was two years in the making. We flew in and Jared and his wife, Emily picked us up at the airport. They were our hosts for the trip and we had such a great time with them!
For one, always remember when you buy a ticket online for Delta, United, or one of these airlines that charges for baggage that it costs that much more. If it is the lowest price on expedia or another website it still may not be if you add the cost of the bags. I was like, "Dang yo! What is up with that?!" It makes me think of the Southwest commercials and how smart the guy that made those is. These airlines should just put it in the ticket price. Man, what a bummer. I say this because we had a box of shirts and other stuff to take down so it ended up costing like an extra $90 just for the trip there.
Well, to get back to our trip, I was so thankful to have my wife Katie on the trip with me, and having Jared from Radio U was a blast. Jared took care of the video footage and was a master at getting in my face with the camera, especially my eye. Weirdo yes, but I get that a lot. Do you think so? Haha.
On Friday, January 7th, we met a guy named Troy (T-roy) who helped set us up with our activities for the day. He works for the school recovery program in New Orleans that helps with the schools that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Okay now, if he made up a rapper name for himself do you think I love the guy, ummmmm yesssss. This dude was awesome. Here we are coming in on Thursday and he finally emails me back that morning, (he forgot we were coming) and his e-mail starts with the letter “F”…That’s it, that is what he put on the email to start. He writes the way he talks, that’s my boy. Well, we took some sweet footage of him also. Organized? Not so much... He was genuine and honest for sure, which is an awesome quality. When Jared Montz () asked him if he liked his new website he responded saying, “It’s F’in Beautiful!" Thanks Troy, you were a hit!
We went to read to some elementary school kids who are attending school in trailers while a new school is being built.
These kids were awesome. Jared started us off with a book about a silent cricket. He did a great job by not helping the kids to figure out what a cricket sounds like. Haha. Try right now to do a cricket noise and see what comes out. I am trying right now and it is making me laugh because I have no idea, this is awesome. But, the kids ended up doing pretty well at it.
Then my wife Katie read a book called “The Day Joey’s Boa Constrictor ate the Wash.” It was a great pick-me-up. Well, let's just say they thought a snake was as cool as me getting a superhero party for my birthday, yep that sweet. They recited most of the book with Katie. They loved knowing it and following along. A job well done wifey, that’s my girl.
So, I come up next to read. If you had to guess any book I would read what would it be about? No, not magic, but great guess. Soccer, well definitely not, come on. Dancing- yes dancing! That was what my book was about. The book was called “Giraffes Can’t Dance.” Before I read I told the kids, “Now, every time I say the word dance I will point at someone and they have to get up and spontaneously dance.” So, we end up getting through the whole book with pretty much everyone dancing. We got spastic jigglers, shakin’ it like salt shakers, the robot (yes a kid tried the robot, awesome), Michael Jackson wannabe (he did the moonwalk, coolest thing I have seen from a kid), and then we also had a kid trip and fall and still go on with the show while on the ground. Yes, I do have video of this and yes I have attached it for everyone to see. Oh yeah by the way at the end I told everyone that they had to get up and we all did a spontaneous dance together.
Then we did something that was chill and we just helped them correct their English test in groups for the next hour. Lunch time, meant a break for lunch for us, and a break from typing for me.
Round two from New Orleans to come in a couple days or less.
Fun day so far? It was sweeeetttt.
