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Jessi started playing soccer in rural Maryland when she was five. Before she knew she was involved with various travel teams, settling with a Potomac Club in WAGS during high school. Jess finally decided on University of Miami to start her college career. For a year, she enjoyed the privileges of being a ‘Cane and playing soccer in the Big East, however after her freshman year she decided to try something different and traveled to Kenya with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) for a semester. After returning to the U.S., Jessi finished school at Stetson University in Florida where she played soccer until graduating in the spring of 2003.

Jessi graduated with a B.A. in Sociology and a minor in Spanish from Stetson, though for the past three years she has found herself continuously working with children in various educational settings. For a while she was a substitute teacher in special education classrooms throughout Montgomery County, then she traveled to Barcelona, Spain and taught English to children and adults. She then worked with children diagnosed as emotionally disturbed and autistic at the non-profit, special education Lourie Center School. During her stint at the school, Jessi was offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to go to Africa with Grassroot Soccer as an African Teaching Intern. She accepted and in the fall of 2005 she traveled to Zambia and where she worked with youth educating them about HIV/AIDS, as well as pioneered a project that integrated street children as pupils. Grassroot Soccer was an amazing experience for Jessi. The best part of her experience is that she felt that the Zambian children she worked with gained so much more from the program than just knowledge about HIV; they learned valuable life-skills, augmented their self-confidence, and learned from priceless culture exchanges.

Over the years Jessi has volunteered to help coach soccer and basketball for various age groups and skill levels. She currently lives in Northwest D.C. and continues to play soccer on several coed, adult recreation teams. Jessi works in Maryland for an organization called Maryland Choices, a non-profit, social service agency that works with at risk youth in Montgomery County providing wrap-around services. The fall of 2007, Jessi anticipates attending a graduate school program for social work, and pursuing a clinical licensure when she’d like to work as a therapist for children and adolescents.