Ruptly
"Looking ahead to the FIFA 2026 World Cup and amidst the fever for collectible cards from the tournament, a trading group born in the Argentine city of Cordoba managed to transform a passion for soccer into a network of solidarity that today helps children with disabilities and cancer patients fill their albums and socialize with each other. The images show children of different ages exchanging their duplicate stickers to help each other complete the FIFA 2026 World Cup album. The initiative began spontaneously around the Patio Olmos shopping center, one of the busiest spots in the capital of Cordoba. There, entire families and groups of friends began to gather to exchange duplicate cards and complete the traditional sports albums, avoiding the high costs of buying packs to get the missing images. Behind the project is Nelson Rojas, a 63-year-old merchant and creator of the so-called 'Grupo Olmos', a community that in a few years went from being a simple exchange space to becoming a meeting point marked by inclusion and social support. "I realized while at Patio Olmos that there was a great need for people to complete the albums. That's where 'Grupo Olmos' was born, and we created this beautiful thing we have today," said Nelson Rojas, organizer. With the growth of the gathering, the group began to receive more and more families with children with disabilities, parents, and therapeutic companions. Nelson observed that the meetings not only served to obtain hard-to-find cards but also to stimulate communication, socialization, and integration of the children in a friendly and participatory environment. "The most beautiful thing about all this is the joy of the children when they complete the albums," added Rojas. The experience led Rojas to use the passion for albums and sports cards as a tool for emotional support for children hospitalized with the intention of creating moments of distraction and joy during long hospital stays and medical treatments. "The idea of donating albums to children undergoing cancer treatment was something personal for me, (...) I said, well, let's do something different with the group that distinguishes us in the country," said the organizer. What began as an exchange of commemorative cards ended up becoming a meeting space where soccer, inclusion, and solidarity mix to create community."
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