Despite the busy-ness of a football season, Corner Canyon High School football team mom Kelli Chandler was “looking for the boys to have one more experience together.” And what she found off the football field proved to be more meaningful than she had imagined.

The team collected new and gently used shoes for the St. Vincent Homeless Center and were able to deliver more than 60 pairs to the downtown Salt Lake location Nov. 11 while also participating in meal preparation for a facility that serves 2,000 meals daily.

“These boys do work hard, but we all had an opportunity to be more focused on others,” Chandler said. “It was so great to get outside of Draper and have the boys see some needs around them and share in our responsibility to give back.”

Many of the 28 Chargers senior players along with some coaches represented the program.

“It was an awesome experience,” said senior wide receiver Tate Kjar. “Serving other people just makes you feel good, especially when you know you’re helping other people.”

Senior defensive end Kash Dillon also enjoyed the “awesome” team building experience. “We spend so much time together, but we’re always focused on our development and competition,” he said. “To shift our focus on giving back to others who are homeless truly makes us grateful for what we have. Cooking meals with your friends and messing around is also fun.”

“Our coaches tell us that when you do something for someone else it brings out the best in us,” said senior defensive end/tight end Sam Chandler. “That brought us a lot of success this year, even though we had to cut what felt like a million onions. That was the roughest part of a great experience.”λ