By Carter Santini ’15
THE ROUNDUP

The Hermanos Unidos club builds a community of Hispanic students through soccer, food and service.

The club started 10 years ago but overtime devolved into a group of students who just played soccer together, according to club member Anthony Gutierrez ’15.

Gutierrez said that two years ago, through the efforts of teachers Mr. Christopher Calderon and Mr. Cristopher Agliano, the group began to grow back to a real community on campus.

Club moderator Mr. Agliano said that the club tries to emphasize the building of community on campus of kids who are passionate about issues.

“The focus of the club has switched from four years ago,” he said. “Originally there was a lot of misguided anger and passion about issues, now we address problems more through community.”

Mr. Agliano said that now they have communal meals where they share their passion for culture, and they host guest speakers who are experts in Latino issues.

He said he hopes to continue to bring students together to form the backbone of an inclusive community to educate people about the issues that face Hispanic people in Arizona.

One of the facets of charity this group does is street adoption where four times a year they meet and clean up 24th Avenue.

“We started doing it as the community service requirement, but after that it became a big part of the club’s culture and ultimately why a lot of people joined,” Gutierrez said.

The club plans to continue to grow as a community, and ultimately to get more of the students to realize how important and real the issues they are passionate about are.

The club brings a human reality to the issues that kids hear about on the news all the time. This educates people more than anything about the issues, according to Mr. Agliano.

“The reality is that these people’s families and friends are affected by local policies, so they get involved in rallies and education about issues,” Mr. Agliano said.