Student-Athletes Making a Difference Beyond the Game
Overview
This blog post highlights three inspiring stories of college athletes who are creating meaningful social change beyond the field. Not only do they juggle college athletics and academics but they also have left a positive impact on their community. Yasmine Mansi started SunBundle to provide gear to underserved communities, Alayna Burns and Brandon Hersh started the Duke Sustainable Athletics Group to make college athletics more sustainable, and Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci started Dam Worth It to end the stigma around mental health in college athletics.
Yasmine Mansi - SunBundle
Yasmine Mansi is a current senior who competes on the track and field team and the cross country team at the University of Michigan. During the summer before her sophomore year she had the opportunity to compete in Egypt. While she was competing there she noticed how people in underserved communities would compete barefoot or in shoes that were lacking the proper support. Competing without the proper gear can harm athletic performance and can even lead to injury. Mansi saw these conditions and realized that the inequality in the sporting equipment provided and in different communities. This led her to start the nonprofit SunBundle that creates care-packages for athletic gear, hygiene products, and educational resources to donate to underserved communities. Yasmine has helped to bring necessary athletic gear to underserved communities.
Alayna Burns and Brandon Hersh - Duke Sustainable Athletics Group (DSAG)
Alayna Burns played field hockey for Duke before going to Stanford to play for her fifth year. Brandon Hersh played football as a walk on at Duke University and is currently working at Duke as their athletics climate and sustainability coordinator. Alayna Burns founded the Duke Sustainable Athletics Group (DSAG) with co-founder Brandon Hersh. DSAG was started because Alayna Burns saw that with Duke’s recent “Climate Commitment” didn’t have an area that specifically related to the student athletes. So she decided to start DSAG which started off with the “Devils Doing Good Shoe Drive”, which donates new and lightly used shoes to the MORE Foundation Group and Nike Grind. And has since expanded to not just collect shoes but other gear as well. Along with successful shoe and gear drives they also extended to hosting and inspiring Duke Athletics to have sustainable athletic events. Alayna and Brandon had an influential impact on sustainability and athletics at Duke University.
Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci - Dam Worth It
Nathan Braaten played soccer for Oregon State University and Taylor Ricci was a gymnast at Oregon State University. Nathan started Dam Worth It with Cofounder Taylor Ricci while they were at college at Oregon State University because of losing teammates due to mental health struggles and the mental health struggles that they faced while competing in college. They started Dam Worth It to end the stigma around mental health at colleges throughout the U.S. Since they started Dam Worth It, they have received a $60,000 grant from the PAC-12 conference, became the official mental health awareness campaign for Oregon State University, launched as a 501(c)(3) Non-profit, and were featured in the documentary Dam Strong. Nathan and Taylor helped to start the conversation around mental health and college athletics, along with creating mental health campaigns at Oregon State University.
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