Hey everyone!



Welcome to our GoFundMe Page! We’re Jake Price, Gabe Price, Jake Doyle, Marc Sands, Paul Klimkowski, and Shawn Dacey. We’ve been invited out to Ahmedabad, India to coach the club team, Abhay Ghat, and show that a young team with limited financial means can become national Ultimate contenders.



Now we know what you’re thinking. “Why is this important?”



Back in 2004, Indicorps co-founders Anand and Roopal Shah gathered a small group of kids together to learn how to play Ultimate Frisbee. They dubbed their grassroots initiative Ahmbedabad Ultimate (AU) and the first team to form out of it was called Abhay Ghat. Their aim was to use organized sports to channel the kids' copious amounts of energy into something constructive and to teach positive values that the kids could internalize and carry with them for the rest of their lives.



So, why Ultimate? Unlike other sports, it is self-officiated even at the highest levels, and includes a competitive mixed-gender format of play. Ultimate players and families know that kids who grow up playing Ultimate learn important life skills like teamwork, respect, patience, and conflict resolution all in an environment where girls and boys can interact in a healthy way.



AU was one of the first Ultimate-based sports community initiatives in India. 12 years later, the AU program that started with 20 kids is now a breeding ground for up and coming players on the national scene. Ultimate has also been growing throughout India and now boasts over 40 competitive club teams, along with a national governing organization, and includes teams that competed in 4 divisions of the world championships for ultimate. The original AU players from Abhay Ghat, many of whom come from very modest households have gone on to successful careers both professionally and in the Ultimate community.



This is where we come in! Abhay Ghat, fresh off a championship in the developmental division of the national tournament in Delhi, is preparing to play in the competitive national tournament, the Ahmedabad Ultimate Tournament, in January. Roopal and the AU Core Team have invited us to come out to Ahmedabad to help these kids reach the next level of play. The 6 of us have played and coached at all levels, from high school to professional play in a US community that has had 30+ more years to develop than the growing Indian Ultimate scene.



While we hope to teach Abhay Ghat new techniques and help them achieve national success in the sport, this trip is also going to be an intercultural experience that works both ways. Having grown up playing Ultimate, we have all seen first-hand the transformative power the sport can have on both individuals and the communities they live in. But, Abhay Ghat is going to teach us what Ultimate can accomplish in a community that is very different from the communities that we grew up in in every imaginable way. We fully expect to learn just as much, if not more from the Abhay Ghat players that we will be sharing this experience with.



We are going to be in Ahmedabad for a little longer than 4 weeks, taking as much time off from our jobs and schoolwork as we possibly can. We’ll primarily be coaching Abhay Ghat, but will also focus our efforts on bringing together girls and boys from all walks of life to play Ultimate in pick-up games, skills clinics, and after-school programs. All of our adventures will be recorded on camera (mostly by Gabe. Thanks Gabe!) We plan on putting together a video to document the trip and introduce you to the team and to Ultimate in India.



Please help us get to India so that we can help a program that is doing so much good enjoy the fruits of their labor on the national stage, and so that we can document and learn from an Ultimate community across the ocean.



Thanks so much for reading and for your support!



With love and service,



Jake, Jake, Gabe, Marc, Shawn, and Paul

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