KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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Every shot of espresso added to a drink at the three Blue Springs Scooter’s Coffee locations this week gets a dozen female athletes from Blue Springs High School closer to Jamaica.
Matt Marble, an assistant girls basketball and soccer coach for the Wildcats, used to organize an annual service trip for the Blue Springs High football team from 2010 to 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought those summer visits to a halt. Marble is resurrecting the tradition — but now it's the girls’ chance to experience the service trip in the central Jamaican jungle valley community of Harmons.
“The investment in women's sports and leadership development is just awesome,” Marble said. “To have a trip like this, to be able to do it again with the Blue Springs High School athletes, we're just really excited about it.”
His daughter, Siena Marble, is among the girls slated to make the trek.
“It truly is a life-changing experience,” Siena Marble — a freshman basketball, soccer and volleyball player for the Wildcats — said.” For anyone who goes, you'll be impacted in some way.”
She’s been on mission trips to Harmon, Jamaica, with her church.
“It was just really cool to grow closer with the people I was going with and also just get out of my comfort zone and do things that I wouldn't normally do here,” Siena Marble said.
Matt Marble knows the incredible impact the weeklong trip, which takes place from July 26 to Aug. 2, can have on kids.
“One of the great things about the trip is that it feels like a year's worth of personal growth jammed into one week,” he said. “You're learning about yourself, you're learning about other cultures, you're helping people.”
During the trip, which is coordinated with a charity organization and partners with local groups in Jamaica, the girls will help build houses, add on to schools, serve meals, and tutor children, among other activities.
Kennedy Smith, a junior basketball and soccer player at Blue Springs, said she’s eager for “the experience of being able to help people and do what I can to improve somebody else's life, because I feel like a lot of people take things for granted. So, I just would like the experience to meet new people and grow closer with my teammates and everything.”
She doesn’t have much construction experience — “Unless my dad needed me to hold a light, no,” Smith said with a laugh, “but I'm I mean, I can learn” — and has never been out of the country, so she knows the Jamaica trip will be significant for her.
Smith also said she’s thrilled to have the community’s support.
“It's amazing,” she said. “There's only so many times in life where you get offered an opportunity like this, and if other people want to help us, we're so grateful.”
Dubbed "Caffeinate For A Cause," Scooter’s is donating all money received for an added espresso shot ordered from May 11 to 17 to the service trip. They hope to raise at least $5,000 to help pay for the trip.
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