Cleveland Browns players use their day off to deliver some much needed clothing
If you were to ask any NFL player what the biggest influence on their lives growing up was, most would answer family and school. This is one of the reasons that members of the Cleveland Browns spend so much time visiting schools especially to encourage attendance.
Recently, team members of the Cleveland Browns (DB T.J. Carrie, K Greg Joseph, DB Terrance Mitchell, DL Chad Thomas and official Cleveland Browns Mascot, Chomps) paid an early Christmas visit to Toni Morrison Elementary in Lorain, Ohio in order to combat chronic absenteeism. The visit was the launch of the “Titan Pride Uniform Program” as brand new sets of school were distributed to various students. The visit was put on by the Cleveland Browns Foundation in partnership with the Lorain City School District.
“Through the Titan Pride Uniform Program, we have an opportunity to help provide every day needs that ultimately have a tremendous impact on students’ attendance, which is critical for academic achievement,” said Vice President of the Cleveland Browns Foundation Renee Harvey. “We are honored to support Lorain students and a deserving community, as well as Lorain City School District’s efforts to ensure youth are getting to school and are prepared for success.”
“We are forever thankful for the Cleveland Browns Foundation,” said Lorain City School District CEO David Hardy. “Their generosity is genuine and their strategic focus aligns with ours – providing direct support to our scholars.”
Included in the gift bags were three Lorain polo shirts, two pairs of pants, one T-shirt and a belt. Along with this, each student received an official Cleveland Browns string bag with school supplies. This gifts are to help break down some of the barriers to attendance which includes lack of adequate clothing. Studies have shown that missing even ten days during the school year can result in a drop of one grad score.
Along with the distribution of clothing each school will be able to establish a “Titan Pride Locker” through a grant provided by the Cleveland Browns Foundation. In the event of an immediate, unexpected clothing need, youth will have an opportunity to discretely borrow items from their school’s supply, allowing the students to remain in class and not fall behind in their education. Due to the recent installation of washers and dryers in Lorain City Schools, faculty members will then also have the opportunity to clean any soiled articles and provide them to the student in a clean state when returning at the end of the day.
Earlier this year, Lorain School District purchased similar uniforms and raffled them off to members of their student body who signed an attendance pledge to create a positive school culture and boost school pride. The Titan-themed clothing items distributed match the designs of articles included in “Titan Pride Packages.”
Recently, the Cleveland Browns Foundation, Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) and Shoes and Clothes for Kids (SC4K) have seen success in their combined efforts to eliminate access to clean clothing as a barrier to attending school in Cleveland.
Entering its third school year, the group has funded more than 6,000 “Special Teams Packages” to offer necessary clothing items to students in economic hardship and expects to serve 2,000 students by the end of the first semester. The program has shown to improve student attendance up to 25 percent the month after receiving a package. The initiative is one of the core elements of the Cleveland Browns Foundation’s and CMSD’s partnership for the “Get 2 School. You Can Make It!” attendance campaign, which has reduced the number of students with off-track attendance by nearly 22 percent and resulted in more than 4,100 additional students with improved attendance habits.
In 2018, the Cleveland Browns and Dee and Jimmy Haslam also provided Lorain High School’s George Daniel Field with a new high-quality synthetic turf field as part of the team’s commitment to Browns Give Back’s emphasis on education and youth football. The Lorain project, finished prior to the start of the 2018 high school football season, is one of seven new field turfs made possible in the region during the past three years through Browns Give Back, all of which are accessible for several male and female high school sports teams and additional events and youth programs in their local communities.
The Cleveland Browns Give Back to Northeast Ohio was established as a way to commit to local education and youth football. Part of the program is the Cleveland Browns’ #give10 and First and Ten volunteer program that encourages fans to sign up on their web site www.clevelandbrowns.com/brownsgiveback and donate ten hours of community service over the course of a year. Once this pledge is fulfilled, the fans are encouraged to come back to the site and share their experiences. The program (the only such program in the entire NFL) was begun in June of 2014 and has participants around the world.