DAPHNE, Ala. — In the game of soccer, there’s a winner and a loser. On Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras day, the Daphne Soccer Booster Club hosted a way for everyone to win.

“We decided a couple of years ago to do a charity game once a year,” said Booster and event organizer Ruth Seawell. “Something different to help the soccer players realize that there’s more going on than just this game on the field and what else they are into. Also it’s a way to tone down the edge of the competition and the rivalry and come together as one community for a good cause and to do something for someone outside ourselves.”

This year, the win-win event was a Mardi Gras bead collection drive culminating with the Fairhope-at-Daphne varsity soccer matches at Jubilee Stadium March 8. The beads collected will benefit Arc of Greater New Orleans, a non-profit organization that serves people with intellectual disabilities and delays from birth through adulthood in Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes. It provides jobs for people with intellectual disabilities by employing them to sort and bag recycled Mardi Gras beads.

The profits from these bead sales also help fund their programs.

Seawell said the beads would also be distributed to local Arc groups if a similar program exists.

“We like to pick high-profile games like Daphne-Fairhope and get the players involved like designing the art work for our T-shirts. Last year we did Haiti relief collecting soccer gear for the kids down there. With the game falling on Fat Tuesday this year we decided to do this.”

The original T-shirt design this year was by Daphne player Jose Hernandez.

“We’re thrilled with the donations from both teams,” Seawell said near the end of the second match. Both Daphne and Fairhope collection bins were overflowing with colorful Mardi Gras beads. “They are just about even and considering the weather, I think we collected a lot. The community really gets behind it.”