Antelope Valley youth football team gets donation to travel to championship tournament

It seems a youth football team in the Antelope Valley that was trying to raise money to make a trip to Florida for a special tournament will make it after all.

The Paris Law Firm is donating $10,000 to send the team to the American Youth Football (AYF) National Championships, Eyewitness News has learned.

The Antelope Valley Knights (11 & under) are the second-highest ranked youth football team in the state of California. They are 12-1.

Before receiving the donation that will cover their costs, the team had been raising money to make it to the tournament.

Head coach Rodney Woods Jr. said the team had booked the flight and planned to leave next week - despite having to figure out everything else, like lodging.

"We don't have a place to stay right now so we're still trying to figure out all the money issues."

Given that his team worked extremely hard to reach Nationals, Woods Jr. said he didn't want to crush the players' hopes and dreams of competing to win it all.

They had multiple fundraisers but had not yet reached their goal of raising $10,000 - until that generous donation.