My love for community started when I was in the 5th grade. I attended an awesome middle school, Our Lady of Guadalupe Middle School, which shut down in Southwest Detroit some years back. It was wonderful to be educated by women who taught us that giving back was essential to our world, and to our wellbeing. Since then giving has been a part of my life, and I have never had a bad experience with it.

That is until I started to work for the Lions. The Lions have a great philanthropic initiative called “Living for the City” and it’s one I’m proud to be a part of while working with Community Relations this year. We help fund great nonprofits and their initiatives like Hatch Detroit, United Way: Meet Up and Eat Up and the Henry Ford Health System: Game on Cancer, just to name a few. I came in excited to work with these nonprofits and to promote our work, except that I quickly realized that nobody cared. Actually, it made some people mad to see the Detroit Lions in the community, and not winning games.

I’ll admit it, when you start to work for the Lions it gets emotional. You think you get upset when we lose? Try having fans boo your efforts to try to teach children to eat and live healthy. You think it hurts you to not get another win? Imagine seeing the team you represent, your product, not work, and then try to sell their philanthropical mission to others. This is something I’ve never had to deal with before, and an incredible lesson learned.

Regardless if the team is losing or winning, the work being done off the field IS working and making an impact. I learned the hard way, but sometimes you need to continue to do the good work, even if nobody cares what you’re doing. This separates those who need praise and approval for their work, from those who just do the good work everyday, even when you’re told that your work doesn’t matter (because the team is losing).

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t hope for more wins, that would make coming into the office a lot more exciting. But I’d also be lying if I said that our community efforts are going to dwindle because of our loss. It’s not. If anything, I believe that it’s on us to continue the work that we do, despite our efforts on the field. Trust me, I’m proud to be a part of this team, because whether people see it or not, Detroit is winning thanks to the Lions, even if it is off the field.