Cleveland Browns WR Ricardo Louis pays a visit to The Boys and Girls Club
After this past Sunday’s close contest against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns player WR Ricardo Louis (who had two receptions for a total of 32 yards including a 29 yard grab) paid a visit on his day off to the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland. The event was to kick off the KeyBank Youth Career Readiness Certificate Program.
Along with Louis KeyBank Vice President of Business Banking Segment Shaquira M. Johnson and Boys and Girls Club Director of the Career Readiness Program Samantha Shahid and KeyBank mascot Key Toon were in attendance.
During his talk to the 100 youth and staff members Ricardo related how the Boys and Girls Club in his home town of Miami Florida got him interested in playing football. The lessons of hard work, dedication and perseverance that he learned there and in school led him to attending college at Auburn and eventually a career as a Wide Receiver in the NFL. Louis spoke of his backup plan of using his degree in communications when his football career is finished and how young players need to focus on restraint when it comes with the high wages they command.
The Career Readiness Program of the Boys and Girls Club focuses on preparing young participants for future jobs through a partnership with KeyBank. While the event was going on representatives of the Cleveland Browns and the Boys and Girls Club interacted with the youth participants and their families in promoting workforce preparation that includes such skills as interviewing, teamwork, creativity, work-life balance and more. These skills were emphasized on the grassy playing field behind the club complex where a mini-training camp was set up with challenges meant to foster the skill sets needed in today’s job market.
The Cleveland Browns participation is part of their First and Ten Initiative that was launched in June of 2014 of which the #give10 program is an integral part of. The program encourages fans around the world to volunteer ten hours each year after pledging on their web site (click on “Community”). Once their ten hour pledge is fulfilled they can return to the site and share their experiences with other members. The Cleveland Browns is the only team in the NFL that promotes a long-term volunteering program that unifies the team to its entire fan base.
Over the course of the year (both during and off season) members of the team as well as staff personnel go into the community to donate their time to various charity causes. For more information go to www.clevelandbrowns.com/brownsgiveback.
One of the primary focuses of the Cleveland Browns Give Back is education with the Cleveland Browns Foundation supporting this mission through financial grants as well as other resources to local education non-profits. This is done to ensure that the youth of Northeast Ohio can receive the education and development they need as they build their foundation for independence and success. The three key areas that the foundation tries to impact are school attendance, early learning and college/career readiness as the goal of identifying opportunities, removing barriers and providing support for students in their quest of long term success.
KeyBank is the official wealth management, private bank of the Cleveland Browns.