The frayed soccer fields at Schneider Soccer Complex will soon be history—this is the four-field soccer complex that is utilized every Sunday by La Liga de Las Américas, which is a premier soccer league comprised of 14 teams from Michigan and Ohio.

      The soccer league is currently in its eighth week of competition as witnessed by the schedule on this page of La Prensa.

      The fields, owned by the City of Toledo, were created over forty years ago and lie behind the Glendale Avenue Wal-Mart and Kroger’s stores in south Toledo, near Schneider and Detroit Avenues.

      From its headquarters at nearby 520 South Broadway Avenue, Adelante, Inc. serves Latinos and non-Latinos that reside in the area, operating three divisions: Family and Community Resources, Children and Youth, and Health.

Sonia Troche, Executive Director of Adelante, Inc.

      Adelante, Inc. also sponsored its first soccer championship last year, with many soccer teams/players from La Liga de Las Américas; it intends on making this fundraiser an annual event, with a fundraising championship scheduled later this year.

      Sonia Troche, Adelante’s executive director, was thrilled. “We have so many children who would love to play the sport they love to watch! With this [contribution] whole families…will enjoy those fields,” she said.

      On June 12, 2007, at these fields, Dann Moore, Wal-Mart’s northwest Ohio market manager, presents a $56,000 check to Adelante, for the complete renovation of the fields.

      Its donation will fund the stripping, mounding, and resurfacing, for soccer play in 2008.

      The City of Toledo Parks and Recreation Dept. will provide the clay backfill and maintain the new fields in partnership with La Liga de Las Américas and Adelante, Inc., according to the soccer league’s president, Manuel Zapata, with completion of the fields by 2008.