Today UFC President Dana White and VP of Athlete Development Forrest Griffin presented Three Square Foodbank, a nonprofit who provides wholesome food to hungry people in Southern Nevada, with a donation for over $25,000. The funds will account for nearly 80,000 ready-to-eat meals.
Three Square CEO Brian Burton accepted the donation on the organization’s behalf.
“A child cannot thrive if they’re hungry. A parent cannot provide the best life for others if they’re hungry,” Burton said. “We’re are grateful and humbled for this incredibly important contribution from the UFC.”
Three Square feeds more than 164,000 unique individuals every month. That type of workload requires over a 130 full-time employees and the assistance of more than 32,000 volunteers. One of those volunteers is Griffin, who has been involved with Three Square and other food pantry services for over a decade.
“He’s our Mother Teresa. Except he doesn’t look like Mother Teresa,” Burton said of Griffin. “We’re only 10 years old and he’s been raising awareness and supporting us since the beginning.”
Griffin grew up working at food banks like Three Square in the summertime and his family often utilized services similar to that of Three Square in order to fuel Griffin. On his own, Griffin has donated over 235,000 meals to Three Square and to hungry stomachs in Nevada.
“It all goes back to food,” Griffin said. “You can’t learn or excel on an empty stomach. You can’t be good at sports without the proper nutrition. It’s services like this that allowed me to be successful.”
And when White was choosing a charity partner for the 2018 Hall of Fame event, contributing to Three Square was an easy decision.
“We do a lot of things to help kids. You’re talking about kids starving in Las Vegas,” White said. “Are you kidding me? Helping out was a no brainer.”
The donation funds were generated in early July when the UFC sold nearly 1,300 tickets to its Hall of Fame event. To date the UFC has donate more than $44,000, the equivalent of 132,000 meals to Three Square.
For more information on Three Square and how to contribute please click here or head over to their website: https://www.threesquare.org/how-to-help
