Impact Of A Scholarship: Audra (Poulin) Esper

Audra Esper was playing soccer on a mountain top in Nicaragua, watching the sunset as the sun rose on a new chapter of her life. 

An alumna of the women’s soccer program, Esper had spent the past few years traveling the globe and looking for her calling. She found it along with a true Maryland characteristic: a heart for giving back.

Esper works for Rayo De Sol, a nonprofit organization “committed to serving the most vulnerable communities in Nicaragua.”

“The best way to describe it is community development,” Esper said. “We focus on education, vocational training, free health clinics, soccer tournaments. Right now, we’re doing this project called ‘rainwater harvesting’ and it’s absolutely fascinating.”

Rainwater harvesting involves setting up giant tanks using supplies from local hardware stores that fill up with rainwater and provide water for drinking, bathing, cleaning, cooking and more for multiple months. 

Her lifestyle of service and inspirational story stems — like so many others do — from sports.

Years removed from an impressive soccer career at the University of Maryland, Esper was searching for her calling. 

“I finished at Maryland and I was just like, ‘well, that’s it. Soccer is over. Who am I now’,” she remembers asking herself. She needed her next step and her next team. She found them both overseas.

Esper got a job as a youth counselor with Norwegian Cruise Line. She was sailing the world and meeting people from all walks of life. She saw new countries and they stole her heart, especially the ones in Central America.  

She was playing on the ship’s soccer team, competing against other ages, nationalities and walks of life when she was invited to get off the boat on one of its stops and play with a group of kids from Guatemala. 

She later became a freelance videographer, looking for ways to make an impact. As soon as an opportunity came, she took it. Esper was invited back to Nicaragua to shoot a video for the non-profit she now works for. 

A soccer match broke out (as they so often did), but this one in particular stuck out to her. She found a type of freedom playing outside of the pressures of college sports. 

“It was spiritual,” she said. “It was a calling. When it was time to leave, she burst into tears talking to the executive director of the program. 

“I said ‘I’ll volunteer. I’ll work whatever I can just to be a part of this. This is something that I know is not an accident, being here.’,” she reflects.

She was hired as a volunteer videographer before being brought on full-time as a connection developer. 

“It’s the most fulfilling thing ever,” Esper said. “Right now, if you gave me $50, I would spend it on a stove that they could put in their homes.”

Fast forward to August of 2025. Esper’s walking on an elliptical when the light bulb appears above her head. 

“I was like ‘Why am I not reaching out to Maryland Athletics?’,” She said. “It’s a huge and giving community and the whole reason this happened in the first place is because of soccer.”

She came down to College Park as the Terps got their women’s soccer season started. She took the opportunity to inspire the 2025 Terrapins and share her incredible post-college journey with the team. 

“I wanted to tell them ‘don’t think that these four years don’t stay with you for the rest of your life in some shape or form,” she said.

She told them the importance of their body language and how to carry themselves. She implored that they not let others put them in boxes, to ignore preseason rankings or outside opinions. She reiterated the importance of approaching every opponent with the same routines and attitudes and above all, how crucial it is that the team support each other both emotionally and physically. 

“I think when you pair her excitement with reconnecting with our program and combine it with what she’s doing with the nonprofit, we have all the time in the world for her,” head coach Michael Marchiano said of bringing Esper in to talk.

Her longing to give back — both to those in need and Maryland women’s soccer — stems from her time on scholarship in College Park where she first felt the Terps’ love. 

“Obviously, the impact of my scholarship was huge,” Esper said. “I graduated from Maryland at 21 years old with no student loans. I also credit my parents because they said to me ‘you have your whole life to sit at a desk in an office. Go see the world!’. They really took the pressure off and freed me up to do something crazy like taking a job working on a cruise ship and waking up in a different country every day.”

In those different countries, she’s touched many lives. In 2008, she and members of her ship put on a Christmas for a village of kids in Honduras. Different departments pitched in and supplied the kids with haircuts, gifts, meals and more. 

“I never felt more purpose than working in Central America with these kids,” she said. “Originally I got involved because there was of course a huge need.  But the joy, life lessons, perspective and connections that I got (and get) from this surpasses anything I could have ever imagined.”

Now, she’s passing the importance of soccer — on and off the field — to the current Terps, giving back to the program that gave her so much and set her up to find her calling. 

“I was so excited to talk to the team to showcase to them the power that they hold as awesome women’s soccer players if they decide to enter the world of global corporations/organizations/nonprofits,” Esper said. “Being able to play soccer, and play it well, against my male colleagues — many of whom were senior leaders from different countries — opened up more doors for me than I think might have on their own. Soccer is the world’s game.”

The message was well-received. Redshirt sophomore Mia Mitchell connected with Esper, bonding over their passions for nonprofits. Mitchell’s family started a nonprofit in 2017, also working around soccer in Jamaica. 

“It’s awesome,” Mitchell said. “I’m so glad they brought (Esper) in. It’s really good to hear people from different places have similar experiences to you that you maybe wouldn’t expect. It makes me proud.”

Esper says she’s finally starting to tap into the program as an alum and give back to the soccer community that gave her so much during her time in college. She’s proud of her newfound perspective and was excited to share it with the 2025 team. 

“I no longer sweat the small stuff,” she said. “I don’t worry about drama anymore. When you see people living in extreme poverty and having to make decisions that you could never even fathom, it gives you a new perspective on your life and a sense of gratitude for even the tiniest things that I might have taken for granted before.”

To learn more about Rayo de Sol and their Rainwater Harvesting System Project - you can visit their website at RayodeSol.org or email Audra directly to get involved at Audra@rayodesol.org.

She hopes to one day potentially set up some sort of goal drive fundraiser with the Terps, combining her two loves of giving to Nicaragua and Maryland women’s soccer. She’s ingrained into the current team to not take a moment for granted and to keep their eyes open for opportunities because they can strike anywhere, even playing soccer on random nights in Central America.