Girls High School Soccer Players Donate Clothes, Toiletries To Women's Shelter

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Several dozen female high school soccer players gathered in Humboldt Park Sunday to donate clothes, toys and toiletries to a women's shelter.

It's the culmination of a four-week program they took part in called Buddy's HELPERS. The non-profit program is a partnership between the PepsiCo showdown and Shred 415.

It aims to bring together student athletes and their coaches for an annual service program.

Soccer players from five area schools took part: Jones College Prep, Whitney Young, Loyola Academy, Lyons Township and Glenbard East.

Stephanie Love-Patterson, executive director of Connections for Abused Women and their Children, says it was great to see the high school athletes support women who are victims of domestic violence.

"These wonderful high school soccer players got together and gathered a bunch of items from off of our wish list," Love-Patterson said.

She says women who are abused think people don't care about them, and it's events like this that show them, there are people out there who care.