Find Your Grind Foundation is proud to partner with quarterback Russell Wilson and his wife Ciara to help support the Why Not You Foundation. The partnership will focus on the buildout of a media and technology space within their new Charter school, The Why Not You Academy.
Supporting the growth of our local communities through city improvements that will inspire and motivate is a key focus for Find Your Grind Foundation. Through our partnership with the Los Angeles Chargers, we will be donating $1,000 for every touchdown scored in 2023 season, which will go towards the improvement of football fields around Los Angeles.
Find Your Grind Foundation x TGR Foundation launch a multi-year partnership to rebuild the Anaheim Learning Lab center and bring in innovative curriculum. This is the first partnership built for TGR’s “Pathways Forward” initiative which will bring opportunity to thousands of California students looking to discover their next steps and build meaningful career pathways.
To read more around the partnership, check out the latest article here.
To further this belief, FYG Foundation is teaming up with The Skateboard Project to support the Chandler Park Skatepark project in Detroit, Michigan, ensuring kids will have a free, safe place to skate.
With 50% of the surrounding community being under the age of 18, FYG Foundation is excited to bring a healthy recreational space that will benefit the neighborhood and create intentional opportunities for community and collaboration in East Detroit.
For many skateboarding youth, the park will become a home-away-from-home and provide access to an environment that celebrates and recognizes skateboarding as a beneficial activity.
In too many places skateboarders get the wrong message from local authorities who limit or outlaw skateboarding and ignore its inherent benefits. Skateparks are the solution – they reduce illicit behavior, provide a safe environment, reduce damage to private property, encourage physical activity, improve mental health, and have a positive economic impact. Every skatepark supports hundreds of kids that might otherwise have nowhere to go.
According to the Tony Hawk Foundation: “Skateparks provide a physical activity for kids not interested in traditional team sports. Community skateparks provide a safe and challenging place for skaters of all levels to develop as athletes. Public skateparks provide healthy activity for kids and help eliminate boredom and drug use”.
In addition to all these benefits, the skatepark will feature “green”, sustainable and eco-friendly skate-able features as well as renewable solar lighting to promote broader environmental awareness. Through this partnership, the Chandler skatepark will break ground in 2020 with an anticipated completion date in mid-2021.
On the inauguration/opening day of the court, FYG Foundation supports comprehensive programming to celebrate the court’s opening that engages the local community in the project. The opening day activations typically include a basketball kids’ clinic, a dunk contest with notable athletes from the area, tournaments, music, and speeches from the school’s educators and leadership.
The cost of hockey development programs can often be prohibitive to families in need. Seeing this, FYG Foundation co-created THE RINKS Hockey program alongside the Anaheim Ducks, which enables youth ages 4-14 to explore and grow their love for hockey.
After launching in September 2018, the first group of 48 youth participated in a full year of programming to help develop their skills both on and off the ice. In 2019, the program expanded to include additional participants and include increased training clinics, as well as mentorship and experiential learning opportunities.
Alongside ReKTGlobal, FYG Foundation supports Junior Rogue, a semester-long professional gaming accelerator program that provides amateur Fortnite players with opportunities to succeed in esports. The program provides access to esports experts, resources and financial support to help fund gaming equipment, tournaments and hands-on opportunities. Students are also mentored by Benjamin “DrLupo” Lupo, captain of Rogue’s Fortnite team and the first individual professional esports athlete to be sponsored by State Farm.
Junior Rogue players receive several unique benefits in addition to mentorship opportunities such as formal recognition by the Rogue organization, streaming and graphical assets for their social media and streaming channels, promotion on social media, access to select Find Your Grind Foundation events, and exclusive Junior Rogue merchandise. They attend weekly online seminars focused on the variety of careers available in the esports industry. Other activities include game nights, resume building and streamed online tournaments that will allow participants to showcase their improvements to the world.
In addition to regular skating sessions, team meetings, and participation in tournaments, Skate Team members are invited to hands-on trainings and workshops to further their skills outside the skate park as well. Team members learn how to contribute to larger, team-based photo and video content projects which ultimately culminate in their contribution of a finale Skate Team video, which premieres at The Bay as part of the annual Skate Art Music Festival.
Finally, a group art show culminating a year’s worth of experiences finishes their programming and each rider has the option to showcase their learnings in their preferred artistic medium – so that everyone can enjoy the experience of participating in their year-long journey of experiential learning.
Find Your Grind has partnered with The Bay in Lincoln, NE for the last three years to support their skate, music and art programming, as well as general operations funding.
Most recently, FYG Foundation helped launch The FYG Collective – a digital art and technology lab that helps create opportunities for experiential learning for surrounding low-income communities. The FYG Collective provides safe access to digital opportunities, helps build skill sets, and closes the technology gap that exists due to socioeconomic inequality.
The FYG Collective exists to serve both the established creative community as we well as young people who may be engaging with these technologies and mediums for the first time. All classes, programming, and lab hours are public access, in line with the other spaces and programming of The Bay with intentional opportunities provided to those who need it.
The FYG Collective also houses frequent educational workshops, offering educational opportunities to the creative community that range from instructing on the basics to those wanting to pursue that particular area as a career.
In our partnership with the Bay, we are working to create opportunities where they are needed, widen the lens of possibilities for young people, and empower the local creative community.
The 48 city nation-wide experience was packed with scholarships, speakers, brand activations, and live performances to inspire the next generation of students to find their purpose and leave a positive legacy. The tour influenced the next generation of culture shapers and is creating the misfits of the future.