READING, Pa. \u2014 The opening match of the World Cup brought fans together in downtown Reading. And they didn’t have to travel far to be part of the excitement.<\/p>\n
The Berks County Latino Chamber of Commerce transformed a courtyard on Penn Street into a giant watch party with food, music, vendors, and one very big screen.<\/p>\n
“Today is the grand kickoff because the World Cup is here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” said State Rep. Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz.<\/p>\n
Organizers say the goal is about more than soccer. It’s about bringing people together, and giving families a place to celebrate for free.<\/p>\n
“To give people that opportunity to celebrate, to watch games for free in their own communities,” Cepeda-Freytiz said.<\/p>\n
And judging by the turnout, the idea is already working.<\/p>\n
“This is a phenomenal activity that Reading is doing for all the residents here,” said Elvis Narv\u00e1ez.<\/p>\n
Narv\u00e1ez has been playing soccer since he was five years old. Now he coaches local teams. And says events like this help bring the community together.<\/p>\n
“Why not have it in your own city where you just got to walk, bring a chair, get with neighbors and enjoy the game,” he said.<\/p>\n
Organizers say more Summer of Soccer events are planned throughout the season as communities across Berks County celebrate the World Cup.<\/p>\n
For more World Cup stories, you can head to the World Cup section<\/a> on wfmz.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2014 The opening match of the World Cup brought fans together in downtown Reading. And they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-216850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}