Hello,
Thank you for showing interest in the Panna Social Leagues (PSL). This blog will help people, like yourself, find out about the fantastic work that we are doing at Panna. My name is Fredson Gomes, and I founded the Balizinha soccer group (the first Panna social league) in 2013 so this blog will be from the perspective of an organizer. My goal is to encourage more organizers to put themselves out there and create lasting memories in their respective communities.
It has been an adventure creating this app; at the same time extraordinary to be able to do it with a good friend. My hat goes off to Bobby Ren, head of engineering and co-founder of RenderApps, for coding the Panna Social Leagues app. It is nice to be able to see our vision come to life finally.
I also want to thank all of the organizers and players over the years who have supported Balizinha and really helped to make it what it is today, especially Luiz Guilherme and Kevin Kononenko. The story of Balizinha is a long one even though the official group has only been in existence since 2013. I'll save the details for a later post but long-story-short, my father built the goals that we still played with today 20+ years ago. My father, Jacinto Gomes, used to play Balizinha as a kid and decided to organize something similar in the US when my family moved here in 1989. I am thankful that he worked to keep the tradition alive for me to be able to experience the game with my uncles and cousins.
I am working on creating a tournament in his name. I'd like to honor his contributions while he is still alive, healthy and vibrant enough to appreciate it. I guess that is my reasoning for chasing this dream of bringing people together and spread the message that we all need to enjoy life a little more and appreciate all of its gifts. It is time to bring people together and celebrate!
Happy Organizing!
Written by Fredson Gomes - cofounder of Panna Social Leagues and organizer of BalizinhaFC
