Featured image: SEPA Soccer Hall of Fame president Bob Kozlowski. Photo: Tom Keenan

The 2016 Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer Service to Community Award will be presented to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Soccer Hall of Fame. The Hall, represented by President Bob Kozlowski, will be honored at Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer’s Annual Awards Banquet Saturday, March 12 at the Philadelphia Marriott West in West Conshohocken. Tickets to the event can be purchased at epysa.org/events/awards_reception.

Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer established the Service to Community award in 2015 to honor individuals or an organization that over a period of years has made outstanding contributions to the Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer community. The honoree has consistently demonstrated a willingness to help others, share its resources and promote inclusion and respect. They may be members of our soccer community doing outstanding works off the field, or have used soccer as their vehicle to help improve the lives of those around them.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Soccer Hall of Fame was founded in 1947 as the Philadelphia Oldtimers Soccer Association. In fact, the organization was the forerunner of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. The “Oldtimers,” as the hall was known colloquially, met every year from 1947 to 2008, sponsoring different local soccer events. In 2008, they changed the name to Southeastern Pennsylvania Soccer Hall of Fame to reflect the larger community and environment they now serve.

The Hall of Fame’s charitable efforts distinguished it from other worthy candidates. The organization has been running its “Coats for Chester Program,” which provides winter clothing to needy families in Chester, for the past six years. To date they have collected and distributed over 7000 coats to shelters and other charitable groups serving Chester.

In addition to Coats for Chester and the Hall of Fame, the SEPA Hall of Fame supports a number of annual awards as well as an annual season kick-off tournament for boys and girls high school teams.

“We’re happy to honor an organization that has been in the Pennsylvania soccer community for nearly 70 years,” said Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer President Jim Kuntz. “Their efforts have mirrored our organizational values of integrity, cooperation, passion and excellence in all of our actions. They help to make our soccer community healthier and stronger every day.” For more information about the SEPA Hall of Fame, visit www.sepasoccerhall.com