Casa Deportiva Cumbre Alta is dedicated to sharing Christ to those around us as we reach the highest level of Ecuadorian sports.

CDCA was started in the summer of 2010 when a group of young men in 7th to 9th grade came together to practice and enter into a local tournament. We since have formed men’s teams, women’s teams, and teams for players aged 3 through adults. Once we add teams for every age group, we will be mentoring roughly 850 players year-round.

Along with soccer, CDCA plans to expand to several other sporting arenas in the future.

What We are Working on this Year

Soccer Academy

The Academy is up and running. Academy teams will be made up of players who want to improve their soccer skills and look to make their way onto our clubs teams. We have partnered with a local school to run their elementary age soccer teams. We have a team of 3-5 year olds, 6-9 year olds and 10-12 year olds. These teams are comprised of both boys and girls.

Additionally we have under-16 year old and under-18 year old teams, both are for boys only. We hope to be able to expand our women’s program to include these age groups as well.

Our program will reach kids of all social statuses of the country. It is not just for those who can afford to play. It is also for those who would never stand a chance to play because the cost is out of reach. We have a built-in scholarship system that is fed through two channels. One, we charge $5 a month extra to those who can afford it, allowing us to lower the cost for those that cannot afford it. Second, we have sponsors who give $20 a month to provide scholarships for those that could never participate in the academy otherwise. Of course the emphasis for the club is not only to improve the players’ skill levels but also to have a door into their lives through soccer in order to share Christ with them and their families – discipleship through soccer.

Our Academy coaches are players from the men’s team. They are reproducing what they have experienced with the next generation of soccer players.

First Team – Our men’s team is the most established team at the club. We’ve been participating in Ecuador’s soccer federations promotion and relegation system since 2014. In our debut season, our First Team finished third, one spot away from being promoted to the next tier of Ecuadorian soccer. We were promoted to the fourth tier in 2016 and reached the playoffs for promotion to the third tier in 2017. We finished third that year, one step away from promotion. In 2019 we have again reached the playoffs and are pushing for promotion.

Our First Team is our best team, regardless of age, which will be trying to reach the highest levels of Ecuadorian soccer. The more athletic success our First Team has, the more the public will recognize Cumbre Alta and want to send their children to play in our Academy and club teams. As we reach the highest levels of Ecuadorian soccer, our goal is to help our players, and those who are in the club’s sphere of influence, take their next step with God, whatever that might be. We do this through team devotions and prayer and through one-on-one time with our players.

Women’s First Team – Our women’s program has seen incredible growth in 2019 under the leadership of Chelsey Brunt. We have over 30 women training weekly. Our ages range from early teens to moms with teenage kids! We will be hosting our own tournament along with a few other clubs that will allow women who are not competing in the professional ranks to have an opportunity to play. Women’s soccer is underdeveloped in Ecuador, and we see great potential in reaching out to players who aren’t getting many opportunities to play. The women’s soccer landscape here in Quito is highly competitive (for a handful of teams) with a severe drop-off to almost nonexistent opportunities. We can bridge that gap.

Business – The club is finishing up construction on our first venture into sustainable businesses. In January 2020, we will launch our very own advertising business. We’ve partnered with the school we train at to put up advertising billboards along the field which sits on a major avenue in busy Quito. This project is the first of many such ventures we will seek to develop in the future. Our goal is to develop businesses to help the club be financially self-sufficient, provide job opportunities for our players and their families, along with providing startup money for future projects as well.

Partnership Opportunities

Pray about how you can be involved. Here are three ways to do that:

Pray –

That we’d have open doors to share Christ clearly with our players and their families
For a soccer field that we can call home – donate to the field fund
That this season would be injury free

Go –

We need more coaches who want to invest long-term in the lives of our players learn more about being a Cumbre Alta coach…
Come down as an intern and see if this is where God would have you learn more about interning…

Give –

We need financial resources to pay for coaches, equipment, tournament fees, etc.
We are in need of a field that we can use all the time, we hope to purchase a field if the funds become available

Examples of what donations pay for:

Down payment for a field of our own. Owning our own field is of the utmost importance for the long-term health of the club. If we had a field of our own, we could rapidly increase the amount of teams we have at the club, which means more lives we get to share Christ with.
$4,500 to rent the field we practice on for a year. This provides practice time for all our teams in a safe, accessible space.
Startup costs associated with new business ventures. Our long term plan is to create businesses that provide opportunities to players (and their families), creating revenue streams to generate funds for long-term viability and future growth.
$5,000 to sponsor a Christian coach for a year to disciple students. We’d love to hire Ecuadorian staff to help us run our teams.
$10,000 to sponsor a team for a year – coach, equipment, uniforms, coaches, materials.