VIRGINIA BEACH -- "He was only 19, and he was killed, and I thought that was really sad," explains Noah Banasiewicz.
The North Landing Elementary School student heard about Nick Madaras a few years ago, after watching a story about the soldier on ESPN. Madaras died in Iraq in 2006 after a bomb exploded alongside a road.
While there, Madaras shared his passion for soccer with Iraqi children. It had been his hope to get as many soccer balls as possible shipped to him so he could hand them out.
"They're just playing on dusty roads," says Banasiewicz. "They don't even have nets. They just have two sticks, like, into the ground, and they're playing with, like, really tattered balls, and it was really sad."
Madaras never got to distribute balls to the children of Iraq, but someone is his home state of Connecticut wanted to make sure his plan came to be. He started "Kick for Nick," a program which collects soccer balls then ships them overseas. Each ball has Madaras' name written on it.
"I can just get one ball and be happy with it, but if these guys get a new ball, then they're going to be, like super happy, so I just thought that's why I would do it," Banasiewicz tells 13News.
For his past few birthdays, the 12-year-old has asked people to donate soccer balls which get deflated, sent to the Madaras family/Kick for Nick, then shipped to the Middle East.
"13 soccer balls is great, but, possibly getting 50 for a hundred, that would be even better," says Banasiewicz .
With that in mind, this year, the fifth grader talked to fellow members of North Landing Elementary School's Student Council Administration (SCA) as well as the group's advisor to see if the school could collect soccer balls. The 12-year-old got the okay. He and other students will round up the balls through June 7.
"I just thought it would be pretty nice, and I thought it would kind of make the family happier if, like, more people contributed," Banasiewicz says, referring to his initial reason for wanting to honor Madaras, explaining, now, "I'm very sorry about their son, even though it was awhile ago."
