Soccer in the Streets began in 1989 when Carolyn McKenzie, a Jonesboro resident, noticed Latino youth playing soccer in her community and saw an opportunity to channel their energy into something structured. Thirty years later, the organization she founded has become one of Atlanta's most distinctive nonprofits — one that uses soccer not as an end but as a vehicle for teaching leadership development, discipline, financial literacy, and job skills to underserved youth across metro Atlanta.
StationSoccer
The organization's most visible program is StationSoccer, launched in 2016: mini-soccer fields built at MARTA transit stations, starting at the Five Points and West End stations in the heart of downtown. The concept is simple and radical — take the unused concrete around transit infrastructure and turn it into space where kids play. Soccer in the Streets has plans for what it calls the "world's first transit league" across 10 MARTA stations.
The Five Points StationSoccer field puts organized youth soccer at the most central transit hub in downtown Atlanta — the same station where Georgia State students transfer, where tourists access the hotel district, and where commuters from across the metro area converge. The field exists at the intersection of everything, which is the point.
The Programs Behind the Fields
Executive Director Phil Hill and Director of Programs Tony Carter oversee a portfolio that extends far beyond the mini-pitches. Youth councils develop entrepreneurial skills, including designing and selling team merchandise. Financial literacy programs teach business fundamentals. Volunteer hours build community service habits. The soccer is the hook — the programming around it is the substance.
The organization operates in communities including Clarkston, Vine City, and Jonesboro — neighborhoods where resources for youth programs are scarce and where the accessibility of a free program at a MARTA station can make the difference between participation and exclusion.
The 1994 World Cup, held five years after the organization's founding, gave Soccer in the Streets a surge of visibility and momentum. By 2019, it had earned a 30-year track record of using the world's most popular sport to build the kind of skills that help young people in Atlanta find their footing.
Original reporting by GPB News, Georgia Public Broadcasting, June 9, 2019.