Lawrence High students film welcome video for Algerian World Cup team

Lawrence High School students used a May 14 drone shoot on the football field to send a welcome message to Algeria, the men’s national team that will make Lawrence its World Cup base camp and train at Rock Chalk Park.

The project reached far beyond a class assignment. Student video director Liam Melendez said the footage had to be edited in less than a school day because the year was ending and students were turning in laptops, turning the work into a fast-moving creative challenge. Biology teacher Marci Leuschen came up with the idea, and video teacher Zach Saltz led the effort, but students handled the logistics, organized participants and ran the filming.

The finished video pulled together student body co-presidents Clark Barber and Aaminah Ahmed, the orchestra, cheerleaders, the color guard, the soccer team, other athletes and several clubs. Chesty Lion also appeared in the footage. The message was then sent to Explore Lawrence, the city’s convention and visitors bureau, as Lawrence tried to show the Algerian players that they would have a warm reception in their Kansas home base.

The welcome carries real weight for Lawrence because Algeria is not simply passing through. The city announced on February 19, 2026, that Lawrence would serve as Team Algeria’s base camp for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with University of Kansas Athletics identifying Rock Chalk Park as the training site. City officials have described Lawrence as Algeria’s “home away from home” while players and staff train, rest and prepare for matches in Kansas City.

The student-produced video also fits into a much larger civic push. City and county leaders formalized a Unified Command in January 2025 to prepare for the tournament and an anticipated influx of thousands of visitors to Douglas County. That work has centered on transportation, accommodation, entertainment, public safety and infrastructure, with local officials saying World Cup preparations are a chance to put Lawrence, the University of Kansas and the surrounding region in front of international visitors and media.

Lawrence is part of a regional setup that gives the Kansas City area four base camps, with Algeria joining Argentina, England and the Netherlands. Kansas City is one of only two FIFA World Cup 2026 host cities with that many base camps, a distinction that underscores how much attention is headed toward the region. For Lawrence High, the payoff is more immediate and more local: a school project that put students at the center of the city’s World Cup moment and gave them a public role in welcoming the visitors who will soon fill Douglas County.