Help Family Support Highland Youth Soccer Club

Joe Lamaina loved soccer.

He played the game. He coached the game.

Really, according to his mother and siblings, Lamaina lived and breathed "the beautiful game," walking five miles to practices and games when he couldn't find a ride to the Lighthouse Boys Club's fields, in Philadelphia, as a kid.

Lamaina's life was cut short at just 33 years old when he was struck by a train in his hometown. His family knew almost right away they had to carry on his memory by supporting the sport he loved so much.

"When my brother passed away in 1999, a night or two later, the calls started coming in from people asking what we wanted them to do in lieu of flowers," brother Jim Lamaina said Monday night surrounded by family in his Blackwood home. "Right away, we knew it would involve soccer—we would do something to help kids play soccer."

The Lamaina Fund has raised more than $100,000 to support Highland Youth Soccer Club (HYSC) since it was founded more than 12 years ago.

"The Weeze," as his family and friends affectionately called him, helped Jim Lamaina coach the Boxers—one of HYSC's first teams—in the early '90s. This, despite the fact he remained a Philadelphia resident after his brother's family had moved across the Delaware River to the Blackwood section of Gloucester Township.

All these years after his untimely death and "The Weeze" is still helping kids play the game he loved so much.

This past season, the Lamaina Fund was the reason roughly 50 kids from low-income families were able to play soccer, according to HYSC officials.

"We dedicate our charity in his name, because although he died tragically, he is looking down from heaven, wanting us to give a chance to kids that didn't have what we had," nephew Jimmy Lamaina, who played for his dad's Boxers teams, wrote in a letter.

Monica Lamaina-Adamson, one of Joe Lamaina's four sisters, recalled stopping by the Beach Blast soccer tournament, which is played on Wildwood's vast beaches, and coming across some HYSC action.

"We started talking to some of them, and we told them who we were. They told us, 'We have people on our team because of you,'" she said.

Over the years, the Lamaina Fund has also been tapped to pay for HYSC's goalposts and an equipment shed when the club moved to Gloucester Township Community Park, as well as for travel expenses associated with tournament play.

"Whatever the kids need," Jim Lamaina says.

For the most part, though, the fund simply has been used to allow kids from low-income families to play the game, free of charge.

That need has grown in recent years, as the economic recession that first gripped the nation in December 2007 seemingly refuses to let go.

"The fund is basically all used up already," Jim Lamaina said, relaying that he barely slept a wink the weekend he found out the fund's coffers had dried up.

League officials estimate 75 or more kids will need assistance in order to play this coming season.

It's for that reason HYSC and the Lamainas have stepped up their efforts, even beyond the golf outing they started about five years ago to supplement the proceeds from the traditional beef-and-beer event, which is now preceded by a stickball game instead of a soccer match.

This year, there will be an HYSC Pasta Night, an HYSC Ladies Night and, of course, the Remember the Weeze Golf Tournament.

The first fundraising event is Pasta Night.

Tickets are already on sale for the Saturday, Jan. 21, event, which will be held at VFW Post 8714's hall, at 11th and Central avenues in Glendora, from 5 to 9 p.m.

For tickets, which cost $5 for kids and $10 for adults, send an email to Jim Lamaina at bones0328@aol.com. Be sure to include your name, your phone number, your team name (if applicable) and the number of tickets (specify adult or child).

The dates for the Ladies Night and Remember the Weeze Golf Tournament will be announced soon. Check back with GT Patch for more information.