This week, in celebration of United Way’s fifth annual Day of Action, 19 NFL players are teaming up with United Way professionals and youth from around the country at the United Way Youth Empowerment Summit. This three-day event, hosted at American University, will engage participants in identifying opportunities to improve the academic success of American students and explore ways to engage more people as volunteer readers, tutors and mentors.
United Way’s TEAM NFL is a volunteer group of civic-minded, college-educated, NFL players from teams across the league committed to helping United Way in its effort to recruit one million volunteer readers, tutors and mentors—a key strategy for cutting the high school dropout rate in half by 2018. As representatives of TEAM NFL, each player has a goal to recruit 3,000 volunteer pledges (99,000 total), accounting for almost 10 percent of the United Way recruitment goal.
TEAM NFL players attending the Youth Summit include: Nnamdi Asomugha (National Team Captain), Calais Campbell (Arizona Cardinals), Vonta Leach (Baltimore Ravens), Cam Newton (Carolina Panthers), Vincent Rey (Cincinnati Bengals), Joshua Cribbs(Cleveland Browns), Brandon Carr (Dallas Cowboys), Virgil Green (Denver Broncos), Cliff Avril (Detroit Lions), Greg Jennings (Green Bay Packers), Glover Quin (Houston Texans), Antoine Bethea (Indianapolis Colts), Eben Britton (Jacksonville Jaguars), Chris Canty (New York Giants), D’Brickashaw Ferguson (New York Jets), Michael Huff (Oakland Raiders), Riley Cooper (Philadelphia Eagles), Charlie Batch (Pittsburgh Steelers) and NaVorro Bowman (San Francisco 49ers).
To learn more about TEAM NFL visit: www.unitedway.org/team-nfl.