When the Hmong sports nonprofit One Family hosted a women’s soccer tournament in June, they reached out to Minnesota Aurora FC.

And the women’s preprofessional soccer team came through, showing up with their mascot and several players, including St. Paul native Bee Chang. 

Tournament organizer Pa Kou Thao said the Aurora — which has a diverse roster including Chang, St. Thomas University standout Mariah Nguyen, and former Minnesota Gophers Lydia Ruppert and Katie Duong — has inspired many younger players of color to pursue their soccer dreams.

“It’s opened a lot of doors for our youth to see that there is a lot of opportunity for them to achieve [their goals],” Thao said. 

The Aurora, which has an informal tagline of “for community, by community,” is community-owned and aims to provide a different approach to soccer, said Andréa Carroll-Franck, a team co-founder and the club’s current vice president of community. 

“We wanted to see if we could do soccer differently in a way that centered humans, that centered community and not just individual owners,” Carroll-Franck said. “If soccer is the global game, what if we did soccer that was for people who played and people who care and wanted to get involved with this in a different way?” 

Carroll-Franck said the team is trying to attract more BIPOC fans to games and will continue to do so next season. 

“Community work is not what we do, but it’s how we do what we do,” Carroll-Franck said. “We’re getting a lot of people coming into these spaces. Part of the work is the continued work that we need to do in community and then remind people to come to our game days.” 

The Aurora has already built relationships with the Hmong community after many young players volunteered as ball girls during the club’s first season, giving them a chance to meet the players. 

At the One Family tournament in June, Chang, who is on the developmental Aurora 2 team, and Carroll-Franck were playing to honor Pa Kou Her, who had recently died from cancer. 

Thao, a talent acquisition specialist and entrepreneur, has seen firsthand how the soccer scene has evolved over the years. 

“When I was in high school, there was one semi-pro team,” Thao said. “After a few years, they disbanded because it wasn’t big enough at the time.” 

Thao said she developed a relationship with Carroll-Franck over the years since watching each other as youth players, keeping in touch over the years. She said things shifted when she found out that Carroll-Franck had co-founded the Aurora. 

“It really shifted into bringing soccer back into the community. There wasn’t a lot of opportunities five years ago,” Thao said. “Andrea’s background is very community-based, she’s really big on supporting women and BIPOC-owned businesses. She was able to get a group to create this team that had this shared vision as well, and then making the core focus our female athletes.” 

The United Soccer League’s Women’s League had a compressed 2024 season that began in mid-May and ended in mid-July, which means the Aurora is primarily focused on reaching people off the field, according to Carroll-Franck. 

“Most other sports teams have a longer season, their focus is on getting people into the venue,” Carroll-Franck said. “Obviously, we want people to come to the venue, and we have been honored to have a lot of people who want to come to our games. So that’s why we think about engaging with the community and just doing the work that we do is 365 days a year.” 

Some of the ways the Aurora engages with the community is through hosting youth soccer camps over the summer, appearing at community events and providing opportunities for people to promote themselves on game days, such as through performances or tabling. 

“Every single person who comes into an Aurora space gets a conversation. There’s not an automatic email that says ‘Thank you so much, we’ll get back to you when we want to,’” Carroll-Franck said. “That ranges from someone who might say ‘I want to be a volunteer, I want to be an intern, I’m a nonprofit and I want a silent auction item, I want to come table at a game,’ or ‘I want to perform, I want the Aurora to come to our event.’ We’ll take that conversation.” 

Kelis Barton, who just finished her first season as a defender for the Aurora, said it was impactful playing for the community in Minnesota and being a player that anyone can look up to.

“I know how important that is because I didn’t have that growing up. We didn’t have players to make that connection with, or even idolize or look up to,” Barton said. “It’s been really cool and fun seeing how much people really do love the club and support the club.” 

For Barton, being a female soccer player of color brings a sense of pride.  

“It’s obvious that soccer is a predominantly white sport, especially in the women’s game,” Barton said. “I hope to continue to inspire other people and get my story out there and share that with others.” 

Soccer has always played a big role in Barton’s life, who grew up in Seattle, and said her journey towards pre-professional soccer was difficult. 

“It’s an expensive sport, and especially to get the exposure you need to actually develop as a player at a young age,” Barton said. “I had to go into this new environment and kind of learn how to navigate being one of the only people of color on the team. I would go into this with the girls that came from very different lives and backgrounds.” 

Thao said there were few opportunities to pursue higher-level soccer when she was growing up. 

“Our parents were immigrants and refugees in America,” Thao said. “Some girls would get opportunities to play college, others wouldn’t because our parents weren’t very well-versed with what soccer could bring to our community, such as scholarship opportunities to play at a high level.” 

She said the presence of midfielder Chang on the Aurora 2 developmental team this year inspired many Hmong fans to cheer her on. 

“She was a player who never had a chance to play college, never had a chance to play at a high level, never played club soccer,” Thao said. “Since the Aurora was in her hometown, she was able to try out, make the team and really develop her skills overall.” 

Barton loves playing for Aurora fans, but it’s seeing young fans coming to games and staying after games end that is special to her. She knows that soccer is not always accessible for kids and families of color, which motivates her to be a role model for players of color. 

“It inspires me to take up that space and being that athlete that can show other kids that you might not come from much, but you can make it out of the situation,” Barton said. “It inspires me to see how many kids are out there getting into soccer and also wanting to take up space.”