After concluding their careers as full-time wrestlers or personnel with a company as rigorous and time-consuming as WWE, wrestlers sometimes devote their time to giving back to numerous charities using their image to help funding.
ESPN recently wrote an article explaining the efforts Hall of Famers Jim Ross, Beth Phoenix and Edge did to help the ‘Headlock on Hunger’ charity created by another Hall of Famer in Jerry Brisco.
[This post contains video, click to play]
The video above is a promo released by Ingles which worked in association with the non-profit organization ran by Brisco to donate non perishable food to those less fortunate. The organization also aims to improve public education in schools. They make themselves known through high visibility events such as the one they speak of in this promo, which took place last week on June 21. Led by the mantra that “when you’re hungry, nothing else matters,” the organization is based in North Carolina.
Brisco spoke about how it affects him watching these kids, explaining how eating can positively affect their behavior. Brisco himself has had trouble with food supply during his life, but as a choice. Knowing how that feels, he wouldn’t want any people or kids in particular to live on an empty stomach.
“It’s heartbreaking. She will feed these kids no matter what. She will buy them lunch or be sure that they go on the school lunch programs. Once these kids start eating — once they get breakfast — they start behaving in classes and doing their homework, and move from being problems in the classroom to being contributors.”
Ross works as the chair to the organization due to his passion for the project. He explained more on this with ESPN, saying that he was astounded by the statistics and thinks people should volunteer more to help the country.
“I’m a big advocate of that people should volunteer more. We’d have a lot less problems in this country if we all did a lot more volunteer work. If we all did good things for those in need. Because we’d have a lot more self-esteem and we’d feel better about ourselves and help the community.”
“When I found out and verified that 25 percent of school-age children, when they are not in school, don’t eat, I was embarrassed that we live in a country that we could allow that to happen. We allow it to happen because there aren’t a lot of people breaking doors down to help any charity.”
“I thought maybe somebody will see me rolling my sleeves up and paying my own way to come to these charity affairs, and get some encouragement by seeing that JR, with the year I’ve had losing my wife in March and dealing with a district attorney and lawyers and all of that stuff, is still out there trying to do things for those that need it, and will figure that maybe, ‘I can do the same thing.’”
“I find that today’s generation of wrestlers is a lot more aware of things like this than previous generations, in my view. I think that the WWE is so civic-oriented that the younger wrestlers get caught up in the rush of helping others.”
Phoenix would explain that they hoped to use their notoriety to help stimulate success for the organization, as they do not want to see children starve through periods like Thanksgiving, Summer or Christmas as they don’t have a supply of food to sustain themselves.
“We got involved with an Eblen Charities turkey drive at Thanksgiving and saw that a lot of families rely on the school lunch program during the year. That leaves the issue of, ‘How do we bridge the gap for these kids when they are on break during summertime, Christmastime or Thanksgiving?’ Some of them go hungry on those breaks from school because they don’t have that lunch program. We thought that initially we could get some sports figures together and use our wrestling names and try to get some notoriety and attention on this cause and do something about it.”
Edge would add that he thinks what they started with now can continue to grow with endorsements from celebrities due to the message they are trying to send to everyone. They have already sold so much, with Phoenix, the vice chair of the company, explaining that this past year alone saw an increase of 33% of meals donated.
“I have a vision for this that you could take it national. We already have Heath Shuler, Brad Johnson, Brad Daugherty, Jim Ross, Jerry Brisco, myself and Beth. But the way I envision this thing going is that when I run into Dave Grohl and say, ‘Hey, do you want to hop on board with this and try to feed some kids?’ we have a structure in place where he can join the fight.
“I want to turn this thing into Heroes Against Hunger, and really let the people who donate know that they are the heroes for their donation. We’re already distributed half a million meals in 2½ years. I would love to see it be 10 million meals. I always try to think where could we push this to so that kids across the country are getting the benefits of this. It’s snowballed each year, and I would love to turn it into an avalanche.”
We noted earlier today that Jim Ross will be partnered with a Hall of Famer to commentate the ‘Mae Young Classic,’ which we highly suggest you take a look at!
Editor’s Note:
This is such an incredible thing to do. If I were around that area when they had the food bank, I would’ve donated some myself. I always love to see people that have notoriety using it for good. This makes me proud to be a wrestling fan.
What are your thoughts on this matter? Would you support it? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page or Twitter account. Additionally, you can find me on Twitter at @SOSNH1995.
The post Several Hall of Famers Looking to End World Hunger With Charity appeared first on WrestlingRumors.net.
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