Blog Action Day

The theme of this year's Blog Action Day is poverty, a blight many soccer fans hear about but few experience. We'll hear about the superstar who came from a tiny, desolate village in Africa and feel amazement at their struggle for 15 seconds then chide them for missing a cross.

For every Didier Drogba or Emmanuel Adebayor, there are thousands of others left behind. For this reason I want you to go to Grassroot Soccer and see what you can do to help. Their mission is to stem the tide of HIV infections across Africa. You might be thinking, "Uhh, the theme today is poverty, moron," but consider this: when a child loses his/her parents to HIV, what chance does that child have of learning the skills necessary to rise out of the poverty to which he/she has been born?

Poverty is a symptom of a larger disease and there are several ways to work toward its defeat. I encourage you to visit my friends at Soccer Overload and Hugging Harold Reynolds to learn more about what you can do to reduce poverty in our world.