This year’s LostSouls toy drive place in the parking lot of The Round-Up Saloon. (Photos courtesy of Todd Maria)

While many events have been canceled due to the pandemic, Lost Souls figured out how to make one work

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com

In the year of the pandemic, it’s hard to say what’s been hardest hit. Certainly the bars — which are only open right now if they’re operating as restaurants — have been a casualty. So have restaurants, which are currently operating at only 50 percent capacity. And sports, which have experimented with playing in a bubble and without fans. And non-profits that rely on their fundraising events to keep providing their services. ….

Lost Souls Rugby certainly fits into the category of teams that have been shut down because of the physical contact of the sport. Team Captain Todd Maria said there was no way to physically distance or play the game safely while COVID-19 rages.

So how could he keep his team together so that once the pandemic ends, they’d be ready to practice and return for another shot at the Bingham Cup? That was the question on his mind.

Service to the community has always been a big part of Lost Souls mission. Among the events the team has put together over the past eight years has been a toy drive for the students at Adelfa Botello Callejo Elementary School in Pleasant Grove, where about 95 percent of the students are considered economically disadvantaged, Maria said.

Maria knew a number of events like his have been canceled. The Teddy Bear Party, which collects teddy bears each year for children who are patients at Children’s Hospital, for example, had to be canceled because the hospital isn’t accepting donations of items during the pandemic.

But Maria checked with the school, and officials there said they’d welcome the donations.

Next, Maria said, he knew they couldn’t do the toy drive the same way they had in the past. In previous years, the team took over the pool room at the Round-Up, and people delivered bags of toys that were piled up on and around the pool table.

They couldn’t do that this year, but, Maria reasoned, they could do a drive-through event where everyone was safely socially distanced and wore masks. There could still be music. And they could still collect toys for the school they love.

“In some ways it was magical,” Maria said, adding that people responded to a post in Dallas Voice and to messages on social media. The response overwhelmed team members.

“For some of those kids, it may be the only present they receive,” he said.

And for the members of Lost Souls, the toy drive got them back together as a team. Community service, Maria explained, is the “secret sauce” that’s made them successful.

“Some other teams have seen the success we’ve had,” he said. “If every team could give back, we’d be a better community for it.”

So just because Lost Souls isn’t playing rugby on the field, they’re still acting as a team. Maria said he’s labeled this the season of service.

Because the Round-Up, which has been a big supporter of Lost Souls, had been closed, and its employees severely affected by the pandemic, the team did a “fill the boot” campaign. Maria described it as a knock off of the firefighters fill the boot campaign — fill a boot with cash solicited from passersby. They donated the money to the bar’s benevolent fund that helps employees through rough times.

Next up for the team? Another successful community service event that will be re-imagined to succeed during the pandemic. Each year, the team collects socks to donate to the Austin Street Shelter, where socks are the number one item requested.

Maria said the event will be held sometime at the end of January or in February and will probably be another drive-through event.

Despite his commitment to serving his community, Maria said he can’t wait to get back on the rugby pitch. In local through international competition, his team has been very successful.

In 2016, Lost Souls won the Challenger Cup, the tier three level of competition in the Bingham Cup held that year in Nashville. That’s the international competition named in honor of Mark Bingham, the gay rugby player credited with helping stop a plane hijacked by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, and headed for the U.S. Capitol by crashing it into a field in Pennsylvania.

In 2018, Lost Souls won the Hoagland Cup in the Bingham Cup competition. That cup, named after and presented by Bingham’s mother, is the level two championship.

Lost Souls was headed to play in the 2020 competition, but like all events, this year’s Bingham Cup was canceled. But it will come back.

In the meantime, Maria and his team are happy serving the community. Getting together to collect toys means more than just making children happy on Christmas.

“It’s been a tough year,” Maria said. “I needed this. It made us feel like a team again.”