About KLD
KLD, with teen founders Akash Nigam and Robbie Gamble, in it's early days.
MISSION
HISTORY
It was the summer of 2007. As is a common conversation in many homes, a father asked his high school freshman son, Akash Nigam, to use the summer to give something back to the community. The son was very agreeable but, being an avid soccer fan, Akash had one condition - it had to be related to soccer. A lot of brainstorming later...and the idea behind the Kick, Lead and Dream Camp was born, beginning the summer tradition of a world-class soccer camp for underprivileged kids in the Mountain View community, where high school soccer stars mentor soccer-loving children from less fortunate neighborhoods in their community.
An infrastructure consisting of sponsors, parents, civic leaders, and preventive law enforcement groups was quickly put together to make the camp possible. With support from community leaders such as Kal Sandhu and Oscar Garcia and forward looking groups such as MV Police Activity League and MVLA soccer club, the first inaugural camp was conducted in July 2007. It was a great success and involved 5 high school student coaches, 30 campers, and 2 weeks of fun soccer drills.
The following year, Akash's sister Sonia Nigam and Allie Gamble co-founded a Junior Camp, specifically for younger at-risk kids to be able to join KLD. The Junior Camp ended up being even larger than the Senior Camp, and KLD started growing exponentially from summer to summer. The camp has continued and grown to over 300 at-risk kids from all the Sunnyvale and Mountain View elementary schools. The number of volunteer high school student coaches has also grown to almost 100 representing many local high schools.
- To provide a constructive, motivational, and fun summer opportunity for at-risk students in Mountain View and Sunnyvale, who just completed 2nd through 8th grade (semester before camp starts).
- To provide an fun opportunity for Mountain View and Sunnyvale high-school students to give back to their communities, while instilling leadership, teamwork, and integrity as they mentor less fortunate children.
- To bring together the Mountain View and Sunnyvale police officers and school districts, with the at-risk and more privileged communities of Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Los Altos, to provide a more educated, aware, and blended community.
- To have FUN!
HISTORY
It was the summer of 2007. As is a common conversation in many homes, a father asked his high school freshman son, Akash Nigam, to use the summer to give something back to the community. The son was very agreeable but, being an avid soccer fan, Akash had one condition - it had to be related to soccer. A lot of brainstorming later...and the idea behind the Kick, Lead and Dream Camp was born, beginning the summer tradition of a world-class soccer camp for underprivileged kids in the Mountain View community, where high school soccer stars mentor soccer-loving children from less fortunate neighborhoods in their community.
An infrastructure consisting of sponsors, parents, civic leaders, and preventive law enforcement groups was quickly put together to make the camp possible. With support from community leaders such as Kal Sandhu and Oscar Garcia and forward looking groups such as MV Police Activity League and MVLA soccer club, the first inaugural camp was conducted in July 2007. It was a great success and involved 5 high school student coaches, 30 campers, and 2 weeks of fun soccer drills.
The following year, Akash's sister Sonia Nigam and Allie Gamble co-founded a Junior Camp, specifically for younger at-risk kids to be able to join KLD. The Junior Camp ended up being even larger than the Senior Camp, and KLD started growing exponentially from summer to summer. The camp has continued and grown to over 300 at-risk kids from all the Sunnyvale and Mountain View elementary schools. The number of volunteer high school student coaches has also grown to almost 100 representing many local high schools.
