PLANO, Texas, Nov. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Last night time at The espnW: Women + Sports Summit in Ojai, California, offered by Toyota, Toyota and espnW introduced the seventh class of Toyota Everyday Heroes. Toyota’s Everyday Heroes program acknowledges feminine people making a distinction for girls and women of their native communities by sports activities. The Heroes had been supplied with grants within the quantity of $15,000 and acknowledged on-stage by Team Toyota Athlete and Paralympic gold medalist Jessica Long. Toyota has been a presenting sponsor of The espnW: Women + Sports Summit for 10 years.
“We’re inspired by these women’s stories, as they exemplify the true meaning of a ‘Hero’ in their communities,” mentioned Angie White, senior supervisor of media, Toyota Motor North America. “Toyota is proud to announce the 2022 Everyday Heroes – Liz Ferro and Nzingha Prescod – and support their mission to make an impact for women and girls through sports.”
The two 2022 Toyota Everyday Heroes are:
Liz Ferro (Girls With Sole – Cleveland, Ohio)
Liz Ferro is the founder and CEO of the Girls With Sole. She began Girls With Sole (GWS) in 2009 as a approach to assist underprivileged women dealing with troublesome life circumstances. A survivor of foster care and abuse herself, Ferro believes that sports activities offered an escape and focus for her, saving her life. GWS gives free health classes (akin to operating, mountaineering and basketball) and wellness applications (actions selling friendship, shallowness and extra) to assist at-risk women dealing with the identical points she did.
Ferro runs all of the applications herself with assist from volunteers. While she has obtained grants and each financial and in-kind donations, Ferro does a lot of her personal fundraising from operating marathons and competing in triathlons all over the world. Liz has written two books, with all the proceeds going to GWS. Over 1,000 women have benefitted from GWS through the years, “lacing up for a lifetime of achievement,” because the GWS mantra goes.
Nzingha Prescod (PISTE Academy – Brooklyn, New York)
Growing up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, Nzingha Prescod had extraordinarily restricted alternatives for after-school sports activities. Prescod’s mom found the Peter Westbrook Foundation, the place she started fencing, leading to an Ivy-League schooling and two Olympic berths.
In the summer time of 2020, Nzingha began her “Fencing in the Park” program, and it quickly grew into the Prescod Institute for Sport, Teamwork and Education (PISTE). Each 12 months, 20-25 college students take part and be taught the mechanics of fencing, self-discipline, resilience and self-control. PISTE moreover provides college and group applications, 1:1 tutorial tutoring and different instructional programs. In addition to PISTE, Nzingha has been working with town of New York on laws to create an Office of Sport for town, a place designed to create extra equitable alternatives for sports activities.
“We’re honored to partner with Toyota in showcasing the incredible and inspiring work of these Everyday Heroes,” mentioned espnW founder Laura Gentile. “Through their remarkable leadership, resilience and dedication, they have created sports initiatives that mentor and inspire women and girls to dream bigger, live fuller lives and achieve their dreams.”
To qualify for a Toyota Everyday Heroes grant, an individual and/or group should:
- Have been working as an lively, sports-related group for not less than two years;
- Are at present creating sports activities alternatives for women and girls of their native communities, and making a significant, inspiring influence with quantifiable outcomes.
Past Honorees:
- 2018 – Cecelie Owens (founder/president, G.I.R.L.S. Sports Foundation), Liz Brieva & Megan Livatino (founder & govt director, Girls Play Sports) and Melissa Clarke-Wharff (founder, Courage League Sports)
- 2017 – Darlene Hunter (founder, Lady Mavericks Wheelchair Basketball), Fartun Osman (founder, Somali Girls Rock) and Mira Manickam (founder, Brown Girl Surf)
- 2016 – Courtney Payne Taylor (founder, Girls Riders Organization), Tracy Pointer (founder, GROW/GROW Girl) and Beth Devine (founder, Philly Girls in Motion)
- 2015 – Chrissy Lewis-Summers (founding father of Beyond Sticks) and Heidi Boynton (founding father of Mini Mermaid Running Club)
- 2014 – Dr. Kimberley S. Clay (co-founder, Play Like a Girl!), Monica Gonzalez (founder, Gonzo Soccer) and Claire Smallwood (co-founder and Executive Director of SheJumps)
- 2013 – Barb Lazarus (founder, Game On! Foundation), Justine Siegal (founder, Baseball For All) and Mobolaji Akidoe (Hope 4 Girls Foundation)
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been part of the cultural material in North America for greater than 60 years, and is dedicated to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility by our Toyota and Lexus manufacturers, plus our greater than 1,800 dealerships.
Toyota instantly employs greater than 48,000 folks in North America who’ve contributed to the design, engineering, and meeting of almost 43 million automobiles and vans at our 13 manufacturing crops. By 2025, Toyota’s 14th plant in North Carolina will start to fabricate automotive batteries for electrified autos. With the extra electrified autos on the street than some other automaker, greater than 1 / 4 of the corporate’s 2021 North American gross sales had been electrified.
Through the Start Your Impossible marketing campaign, Toyota highlights the best way it companions with group, civic, tutorial and governmental organizations to deal with our society’s most urgent mobility challenges. We imagine that when persons are free to maneuver, something is feasible. For extra details about Toyota, go to www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.
About espnW
espnW is a worldwide multiplatform model devoted to partaking and provoking girls by sports activities. espnW.com, the model’s content material dwelling, provides whole entry to feminine athletes and the sports activities they play, takes followers inside the most important occasions, and captures the most important traits in sports activities life/type. espnW additionally gives a singular perspective on the sports activities tales that matter most to girls and highlights the crossroads of sports activities and tradition. Founded in July 2010, espnW’s content material and voices reside throughout digital, tv, radio, movies, occasions, instructional platforms and social media.
Media Contacts:
Samuel Wells Mahoney
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Ava Weaver
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espnW
Jay Jay Nesheim
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Isabelle Lopez
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SOURCE Toyota Motor North America
