Schalke is helping

"Schalke hilft" or "Schalke is helping" is a charitable endeavour set up by German soccer giants Schalke. Its goal is simple: to give something back to the club's hometown of Gelsenkirchen, which has seen better days.

"This is my second life," says Schalke soccer club's second in command for off-pitch activities, Moritz Beckers-Schwarz, who runs "Schalke hilft" voluntarily outside of office hours.

"The event has gone really well," he told Deutsche Welle at a special Christmas luncheon in a soup kitchen for about 60 of Gelsenkirchen's poorest people. "One woman told me that she hadn't eaten properly for three days as she was getting her food."

This event was the first of its kind - "Schalke hilft" was only conceived in July 2008 and is still somewhat in its infancy - but it was apparently a hit with the diners, as well as the organizers.

"The food was great, really special, however, the food is always great here," said Irene, a regular visitor to this soup kitchen in the north of Gelsenkirchen.

"I had hoped a few players might be here, but it wasn't to be, and that's understandable - it's Christmas and they want to be at home, just like the rest of us. But this was great, and now I want to know what they have planned for Easter!"

A city in decline

Gelsenkirchen is an industrial city in Germany's Ruhr Valley, once the driving force behind the German economy. This region was rich in natural resources, and the mining industry caused a population boom in a number of settlements starting around the industrial revolution.

Gelsenkirchen's population peaked at just under 400,000 in 1959, but over the next few decades, as the mines began closing, the city struggled to fight rising unemployment - which is now at almost double the German national average, approaching 20 percent.

"Gelsenkirchen is a very poor city in Germany," Schalke's Beckers-Schwarz says. "You can compare it with some parts of the East of Germany."

"Every year the city gets smaller and smaller, the young people are going to the big cities like Berlin, Cologne and Duesseldorf.

A debt to Gelsenkirchen

Schalke is no stranger to tough times, either. The club has flirted with bankruptcy during the darker days of its history, and only its status as the third-best supported club in the country helped keep it afloat.

"In the '70s and '80s Schalke had a lot of financial problems, and the supporters and everybody in Gelsenkirchen was really supporting this club and even giving all their money to this club so it could survive," Beckers-Schwarz explains.

"Now, Schalke is in a situation to help the city and to help the people of Gelsenkirchen. We're in a position to give something back."

Other plans for the fledgling "Schalke hilft" organization - which is primarily funded by the club and supplemented by charitable donations - include a scheme to provide laptop computers for Kindergartens in some of the poorest areas of the city. These should help young children - especially those of foreign origin - get their German language skills up to speed more quickly. Language deficiencies have been identified as one of the biggest problems holding back schools in more impoverished areas of Germany.

However, for all the good intentions, perhaps the greatest gift that the city of Gelsenkirchen desires from its boys in blue and white is in Schalke's primary area of expertise.

The club - despite its enormous support and a successful history in German and European soccer - has not won the German Bundesliga in 51 years. Currently lying second in the table at the half way point, this could be Schalke's year, however, Beckers-Schwarz insists that the young squad is just targeting qualification for European competition - for now.


Author: Mark Hallam

Editor: Andreas Illmer