Suffolk County Community College Alumni Association

Congratulates Joan Bolanos Martinez ’17 featured by his employer Amazon

How two Amazonians joined forces to close the gender gap in amputee soccer

After bonding over shared experiences, Joan Bolanos Martinez and Cliff Donathan established an organization to empower women with limb differences through amputee soccerA to Z News December 20, 2023

December 3 was International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD), proclaimed by the United Nations. At Amazon, we celebrate inclusivity and the contributions of persons with apparent and non-apparent disabilities, and are recognizing IDPD under the theme United in Action, Advancing Accessibility for All throughout the month. Learn more here.

In recognition of IDPD, we’re highlighting two Amazonians who established an organization that empowers women with limb differences through amputee soccer. 

Amazon Financial Analyst Joan Bolanos Martinez, a native Venezuelan, played soccer his whole life. But after he lost his leg due to a medical complication in 2007, he had to learn a new way to play the sport he loved.

Joan was introduced to amputee soccer in 2015 after moving to the United States.

“I felt scared because I thought I was too fragile. I remember thinking, ‘what if I break a bone, or what if I fail?’ But it was also really exhilarating, and I remember feeling happy,” he said.

By his third time playing, he was hooked. “I felt seen again, I felt valuable again. I knew this was an avenue for me.”

Cliff Donathan, principal security advisor at AWS, used to take his daughter, Amie, to Seattle Sounders games when she was just 4 years old. She was a natural athlete and competitor, and even though she was born with a rare disability that caused her left femur to stop growing, she dove into the sport.

“I used to coach her in soccer when she was little, and I was real with her. I’d tell her that she’d be the slowest on the field just given her prosthetic, and to grow her competitive edge, we’d just watch hours of soccer on YouTube,” he said.  

Amie played able-bodied soccer for six years until she made the difficult decision to leave the sport.

“As the players got faster on the field, Amie felt like she was holding them back,” Cliff said.

Amie soon took to competitive golf and just as colleges were looking to recruit her, she was introduced to amputee soccer and knew she wanted to pursue it.  

Amie went on to become one of the youngest members of the U.S. National Amputee Soccer team, and in 2022, competed as one of only two women in the World Amputee Football Federation World Cup. More recently she was inducted into the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) museum where her jersey and crutches are hung on the wall among greats like Mia Hamm.

Amie, pictured here on the left, playing amputee soccer. On the right, is a photo of her being inducted into the FIFA museum, holding her jersey.

Cliff and Joan’s paths crossed when Joan was working for the American Amputee Soccer Association (AASA). They not only bonded over shared experiences, but they bonded over a subtle paradox—while amputee soccer never had a gender requirement and was developed to be inclusive, it was still a male-dominated sport.

Amie herself experienced gender discrimination.

“Amie was about 15 years old playing with 30-year-old men, some of whom would pull her aside and say, ‘you don’t belong on the field,’” recalled Cliff. 

Joan also was no stranger to the gender gap. He recognized that it had been more than a decade since a woman joined amputee soccer—that woman being Amie. As a board member for AASA and also working full time at Amazon, Joan made a push for the organization to focus on making the sport more accessible for women. After a failed attempt, he resigned. 

Both Amazonians with a shared mission, Cliff and Joan established the United States Amputee Football Federation (USAFF) in January 2023 to elevate and empower all women with limb differences through the support, growth, and inclusion of amputee soccer. 

With the goal to hold their first camp on International Women’s Day in March, Cliff and Joan had only two months to set up 501(c)(3), create a website, find a facility, and more.

“In the middle of all of that, my manager Hart Rossman said he wanted to donate to USAFF to help fund women traveling to the event. This meant a lot, and helped legitimize our organization,” said Cliff.

Since then, Cliff and Joan have held camps around the world including in the Ukraine, Mexico, and Colombia to raise awareness of amputee soccer, introduce people with limb differences and their families to the sport, and build partnerships with local organizations that support people with disabilities.

They achieved another milestone when FIFA accepted Cliff and Joan’s proposal to set up a presence at the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia, where they could spread awareness of amputee soccer and USAFF’s mission. 

A group photo of USAFF volunteers taken at the Women’s World Cup 2023 in Australia. Cliff is pictured second to the left, while Joan is fourth from the right. Amie is pictured in the middle.

While there, Joan had the opportunity to participate in interviews with NBC and Telemundo. But the most meaningful moment to him was experiencing seven-year-old, Sam, light up when he saw amputee soccer. 

“We gave Sam’s mom a pair of crutches when we first met them at the World Cup. They came back the next day and his mother said, ‘Sam, has been jumping around with the crutches, kicking the soccer ball since yesterday.’ And he did that for the next four days that we were there,” said Joan. “It’s small, yet transformational moments like this make this all worth it.”

Joan pictured here in the middle with FIFA Chief Women’s Football Officer Sarai Bareman to his left, and Sam to his right at the Women’s World Cup 2023 in Australia.

Cliff shared a similar moment when he saw the joy that came to eight-year-old Maddie’s face when she was introduced to amputee soccer at one of their camps in Texas.

“I watched her go tell her parents that these are her people, just like my daughter did,” recalled Cliff.

Since then, FIFA has expressed interest in inviting Cliff and Joan to all their World Cup events and deepening their relationship with USAFF. Cliff and Joan have also worked to spread awareness of USAFF at conferences around the country, and even had a presence at AWS re:Invent this year where they connected with executives and business leaders who are interested in getting involved in their organization.

As far as their hope for those who experience amputee soccer through USAFF? 

“We just want people with limb differences to know they have an opportunity to continue to play a sport they love, and not be excluded from it,” said Joan. 

Learn more about USAFF here.

Source: Amazon A to Z

Flashback “The American Dream in 2019: Joan Bolanos Martinez’s ’17 Resolve Before and During His Time at Columbia University”

At Suffolk County Community College Joan served as a Senator in the Student Government, a Peer Mentor, Carmen E. Ortiz ESL Scholarship, Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and SUNY Chancellor Award.

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