Children from the Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos Orphanage in Telgucigalpa, Honduras approached the new game of lacrosse with curious eyes as written by Caitlin Sisk, reporter for The Observer. But after a week of running through the basic rules and getting to know the technique under David Earl, current professional for the Minnesota Swarm, the children of the small village fell in love with the game.
David Earl, a former Notre Dame player and current professional for the Minnesota Swarm had the following to say on his involvement with the youth of Nuestro Pequenos Hermanos Orphanage: "Any way to give back to these children and to give back to the center and the orphanage would be just a privilege for me … If I can go out there and bring a sport that I love to play and love to teach and put smiles on kids faces by teaching that, I think that’s just an unbelievable opportunity in itself,”
Three Notre Dame graduates, John Arlotta, owner of the Minnesota Swarm, Dr. Peter Daly, an orthopedic surgeon for Summit Orthopedics and David Earl developed the program a couple of years ago when Dr. Daly visited with Nuestro Pequenos Hermanos to discover the inadequate medical care available to the children of Honduras.
“[Their situation] got us thinking that they really need a surgical facility that the poor can access … So over the ensuing three to four years we got the money raised and got it built and started getting all of the equipment from the facilities around,” Daly said. “Now it’s been functioning well, and it actually just started functioning on a full-time basis.” In addition to the need to access to medical care, Dr. Daly believed in enriching the lives of the orphans through sport for both a healthy and happy living situation. This principle of enrichment brought about the idea of exposing a new sport to the orphans that the children usually could not access, Daly said.
