Doug Baldwin, Cliff Avril, Michael Bennett start Champions of Change for area communities
Three Seahawks Super Bowl winners are now championing something else.
Change in the community.
Retired Seahawks Doug Baldwin, Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett announced Friday they have formed an organization that will fund grassroots, nonprofit groups across the Seattle area.
They are calling their group Champions of Change.
“As players, we came together in a brotherhood that set aside individual priorities for the benefit of the team. That effort was celebrated, in unity, by this city and region,” Baldwin, the Seahawks’ self-made wide receiver from 2011-17 who won Seattle a Super Bowl with Avril and Bennett in 2014, said in a release announcing their initiative Friday.
“Our goal is to take what we learned during our championship chapter to build a new team, and once again bring the city and region together, but this time to support the organizations that make our families and communities stronger.”
Champions of Change will host several fundraising events in its first year.
On June 26 the group is hosting a celebrity basketball game at the new Climate Pledge Arena at Seattle Center. The game is to feature “legends of Seattle sports teams” as players and as coaches, according to the Champions of Change release. The group says it will be making announcements soon to detail who will be playing in the benefit game.
The organization is planning a “Game Changer” auction and draft party. Those in attendance can make donations for tickets to play a variety of games with Seattle sports stars.
Champions of Change is also planning a day of service. Baldwin plus former Seahawks Super Bowl defensive ends Avril and Bennett will dedicate a day to several projects across the Puget Sound region in conjunction with benefiting partners.
In 2022, the group’s benefiting partners include:
- the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic for culturally relevant medical care run by Seattle Children’s hospital in Seattle’s Central District neighborhood.
- DADS, a grassroots group of fathers seeking to end the epidemic of absent fathers in the United States. DADS’ goal is to restore families by empowering previously absent fathers to be responsible family leaders. The aim is to stop cycles of family violence and brokenness to provide a protective and loving path for children, the group says.
- Women United Seattle, a south King County group dedicated to providing a respite for kinship caregivers and the children they raise. Women United Seattle was founded by Alesia Cannady, who is raising a granddaughter. Cannady’s organization offers a supportive community of love and encouragement, plus assistance for kinship caregivers with the activities and essentials it takes to raise a child.
- Humble Design Seattle, serving local families emerging from homelessness by turning empty houses into welcoming homes. “More than a makeover, it’s a start over,” the group says. Statistics show more than 50% of individuals return to homelessness within a year. Humble Design says those moving into one of their home return to homelessness less than 1% of the time.
- Dignity of Divas is a group that provides counseling and workshops to restore the self-worth of women who have been unhoused, as the first step to stability and self-sufficiency. The group’s Dream Academy in downtown Seattle provides counseling services, resume-building classes, technology training, interpersonal skills training and wellness classes.
The idea is to call upon the many connections and friends Baldwin, Avril and Bennett have in the Seattle area from their days winning championships for the Seahawks.
That has the potential for a star-packed charity basketball game at Climate Pledge Arena in June.
“We have a lot of friends in the sports community,” said Avril, who has a number of philanthropic initiatives locally and is a regular attending Seattle sporting events such as Mariners and Kraken home games.
“While I don’t want to ruin the surprises, we are working toward the game featuring well-known players from our team, and former or current stars from the Mariners, Storm, Sonics, Sounders, Kraken, Reign, Huskies, Cougars, as well as NBA, MLB and NFL players raised in this area.
“What I will tell you is this: fans are going to enjoy the game.”
Champions of Change seeks to make its 2022 inaugural events an every-year happening in Seattle.
“Our goal is to make the basketball game, auction and day of service annual events,” said Bennett, who runs a foundation with his wife Pele, The Bennett Foundation, that aims to reduce childhood obesity. “We are dedicated to doing what we can to support the local organizations that have been the longtime support system for families within their communities.”
Baldwin in particular has been all over philanthropic and social-issues across Washington.
The Stanford graduate raised in Florida as the son of a career law-enforcement officer has demanded all states’ attorneys general review police policy, and has worked with Washington attorney general Bob Ferguson on changing use-of-force training for police in the state.
Baldwin has written Congress advocating for a criminal justice reform bill.
A couple years ago Baldwin started his Family First Community Center, a recreational and health-care center for the Cascade/Benton neighborhood of Renton. The center provides medical services, dental services, mental services and financial services for a community about seven miles south of the Seahawks’ headquarters.
Now Baldwin, Avril and Bennett intend to use their philanthropy and celebrity status around Seattle together beyond football.
“Doug, Cliff and I intend to supercharge the work we have seen change the lives of families,” Bennett said, “and we are asking others to join us.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2022 at 11:46 AM with the headline "Doug Baldwin, Cliff Avril, Michael Bennett start Champions of Change for area communities."
