• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, December 14, 2017

While plenty of kids’ sports teams are out there scrambling for funding, Dick’s Sporting Goods’ focus this season is on an especially deserving bunch: A group of African refugees in Houston, whose soccer season got crushed by Hurricane Harvey.

Called reVision FC, the team was in the midst of a winning season when the storm hit, decimating the homes of some of its young players and choking off funding. Dick’s completely re-outfitted the team and its clubhouse, capturing all the tears in a short film, reVision FC: A Holiday Assist.

The effort is part of its “Give the gift of sport” holiday marketing campaign, and the Pittsburgh-based retailer says the $120,000 gift is large enough to keep the team on the field for the next three seasons.

"We know the importance of giving gifts that matter during the holidays," says Dick’s president Lauren Hobart, in its announcement. "We believe giving the gift of sport brings people together, and can provide some sense of normalcy to kids whose lives have been turned upside-down."

The chain’s foundation has committed $2 million in donations to teams and schools impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and $1 million is still available.

Refugees are also starring in another campaign, this one based in Belgium and aimed at bringing music back to Mosul. The initiative, named Imagine Home, is the brainstorm of Belgian journalist Rudi Vranckx, who wanted to bring some joy back to war-torn Mosul and help young refugees with the power of music. (ISIS thinks music is a bad thing, and besides punishing musicians, also destroyed their instruments.)

A film explains the background of the program, which donates instruments to those still in Syria, and also provides music lessons for refugees in Belgium. Donors can buy as little as one musical note in the new music, created in collaboration with young refugees and musicians in Mosul. 

To create the project, ad agency Mortierbrigade recorded more than 20 different instruments, identifying and isolating each note, which allowed it to put them in the score individually, so people can buy them one by one. Each note costs €5, with almost 5,000 available.

“The sound of a note is only revealed when it is bought,” the organization says. “The more donations, the more the composition comes to life. And only when all music notes have been bought will the complete composition be revealed.”