Philadelphia Community Empowerment Through Soccer / aka Kensington Soccer Club

Our mission is to unite and advance Philadelphia communities with high quality soccer and youth development programs open to all, regardless of ability to pay. We provide nurturing settings for children to exercise, play soccer, and learn teamwork and social skills, while helping families access opportunities in sports, academics, social services, and employment.

We are a non-traditional soccer organization, combining aspects of traditional soccer clubs with broad-based community outreach programs. We introduce soccer to kids and families who are new to the sport, with teaching techniques that encourage problem-solving, behavior management, and individual responsibility. We use our team-based competitive programs to forge close relationships with players and families, in order to promote youth and community advancement.

We began in 2009 as Kensington Soccer Club, with recreational youth programs. In 2014, we incorporated as an independent 501c3 non-profit: Philadelphia Community Empowerment Through Soccer.

We continue to use the Kensington Soccer Club name, reflecting our base in the in the zip code of Philadelphia with the highest rate of poverty in the city.

We put special emphasis on inclusion; many of the participating families are recent immigrants. Many of our coaches speak Spanish; we work hard to accommodate families whose first language is not English.