We talk a lot about the players on the field and what they bring to the game. Let’s talk a little about the impact of a few of the players off the field and in their communities.
Let’s start with QB Jameis Winston, who launched his Dream Forever Foundation in 2017. His foundation’s mission is to “impact the lives of financially disadvantaged children and youth through encouragement, opportunities and resources to develop and achieve their dreams.” In June of this year his foundation built a Dream Room full of state-of-the-art technology at Alexander Elementary School in Tampa, a Title I school. If you’d like to learn more about his foundation, you can find his website here.
That brings me to our next player, Donovan Smith, who is heavily involved with the charity foundation Autism Speaks. Donovan has been pretty vocal about his involvement and his reason for doing so. We learned that his nephew, Aiden, has non-verbal autism. Last season Smith chose Autism Speaks for his My Cause, My Cleats campaign. He also participated in the Autism Speaks walk with his team Aiden’s Warriors in April of this year. You can find the link to their team page here.
Donovan also hosted a Bowling for Autism event on May 7th, 2018 at Pin Chasers bowling alley in Tampa. He even brought along some of his teammates to help out with the event! You can find out more about that here.
Next up we have Mike Evans. He and his wife Ashli launched the Mike Evans Family Foundation in December of 2017. The foundation helps low-income students with college scholarships. His program helps women and families in domestic violence situations. They also ran A Catch for Christmas campaign last year to benefit those families in Tampa and Galveston, Texas, where Evans is from, and hosted a Charity Celebrity Weekend in May of this year. If you would like to learn more about his foundation and what he’s up to, you can find that information here.
It’s nice to see these guys out there helping their communities and helping to change the lives of those around them.
