Local female soccer players are getting a boost from a group that hopes to see its efforts promote the entire local sports scene.

Molly McAleer, who coached the Sequim High girls soccer squad in 2010 and 2011, is helping spearhead the Sequim Women’s Soccer Booster Club (SWSBC), a grassroots organization looking to promote and support young females through soccer.

Put in action, SWSBC looks to raise funds to help local girls soccer at various levels from the youngest junior soccer players (ages 3 and 4) up into high school and, with the possibility of awarding scholarships, beyond high school.

“There’s no shortage of talent on the peninsula; it’s just untapped,” McAleer said.

McAleer said the group began forming about two years ago. Parents like Ambur Taft, a former coach and area player, were filling in here and there, but the timing seemed right to create a more formal group.

Enter SWSBC, with McAleer, Taft, and Sequim High School staffers Dana Minard and Melee Vander Velde as the core group, along with member-at-large Derek Vander Velde, Sequim High School’s varsity girls team coach.

While there is an established club group that bolsters boys soccer in the area — namely, Storm King — there isn’t much for girls, particularly in the middle school ages, McAleer said.

“There’s a lack of participation and of knowledge of the sport,” McAleer said. “Statistically that (middle school age) is where we lose girls in general.”

“We are making sure the girls have everything they need (to succeed),” McAleer said. That can be in the form of soccer gear to access/registration to summer camps to, Taft said, offer scholarships toward college.

“Even if it’s not a huge amount (it helps),” Derek Vander Velde said.

“Ideally (these players) would come back and coach in the community,” McAleer said.

Derek Vander Velde said he hopes to see SWSBC promote camps for junior soccer players.

The group would provide a link of talent from younger ages to high school and the Peninsula Soccer Academy, an advanced team for 14- to-18-year-old girls across the North Olympic peninsula.

“We want to promote all sports,” Melee Vander Velde said. “We want to work with them, get them into weightlifting, making them stronger overall.”

That will make other programs stronger, Minard said, as boys teams are encouraged by their peers.

Melee Vander Velde added that she’d like to see a component where Sequim athletes could get some international experience.

“Wouldn’t it be cool to support an exchange somewhere around the world?” she said.

McAleer said the group will be raising funds through community donations, sponsorships, scarf sales, registration from the Sequim spring/summer adult coed league and other venues.

Taft said the group is also looking into writing grants for funding.

“Community buy-in is big,” McAleer said.

The biggest fundraiser in SWSBC’s sights right now is the Dungeness Cup, a youth soccer tournament that saw as many as 40 teams from across the region compete for division titles at the Albert Haller Playfields in Sequim. The Cup was a popular draw for area soccer teams from 2012-2016 before it was put on hold in 2017.

SWSBC has joined forces with StarfireSports in Tukwila, an organization that is helping with vendors, referees, scheduling, online registration, games, reporting and overall protocol for this year’s Dungeness Cup, set for Aug. 4-6.

“After the Dungeness Cup,” Derek Vander Velde said, “We’ll figure out where we are from there.”

For more about the group, see www.facebook.com/Sequim-Womens-Soccer-Booster-Club-175338486208529/.