It's become a tradition here at Black Shoe Diaries to adopt an obscure Penn State football player and sponsor him in the annual Lift for Life event on campus benefiting Uplifting Athletes. Here's the organization's mission.
Uplifting Athletes is a national nonprofit organization aligning college football with rare diseases and raising them as a national priority through outreach, research, education and advocacy. What makes Uplifting Athletes unique is that our chapter network is run by current football student-athletes, providing them with an opportunity to gain practical job skills while learning how to leverage their assets and abilities to make a positive and lasting impact.
At Penn State, football team members raise money for Uplifting Athletes in a weightlifting competition. Fans can support their efforts by pledging money to individual players. In the past here at BSD, we've supported Evan Hailes and Stephen Obeng-Agyapong. This year, we're putting our support behind kicker Sam Ficken, who at the moment has raised exactly 0$. His goal is $500, and today, we're asking you, the Black Shoe Diaries readers, to pledge your money in Ficken's name, so we can A) Raise money for this great organization and its work, B) Help Sam reach his total, and C) Show the capability of the BSD community to act as a force for good in the community.
If you're willing and able, make a tax-deductable donation onSam's page here. Let's see how high we can get him in the team standings. You're current top five is:
Eric Shrive: $21,410.00
Mike Farrell: $2,180.00
Zachary Zwinak: $1,370.00
Kevin Blanchard: $1,000.00
Adam Gress: $900.00
Lift For Life is July 8 in Holuba Hall. Can we get Sam into the top five by then? (H/T Paige2PSU for getting our lazy butts moving on this.)