Mr. Ford’s Sports History and Leadership Class chooses causes inspired by NFL initiative

By Emily Liston, STAFF WRITER 

Feb. 13, 2024 

SANFORD, Maine – Inspired by the NFL, Mr. Ford’s Sports History and Leadership class completed a recent project promoting an important cause of their choosing and designing a pair of cleats for that cause. 

The NFL does an annual initiative called “My Cause My Cleats”, where all the players choose a certain charity they want to focus on, and then they represent their cause of choice on custom-designed cleats. These cleats get sold off to auction, so all the money raised goes to the charities that the players selected. According to the NFL website, this happens during weeks 13 & 14.

“Before they designed their own, they researched from other teams what some of their favorite NFL players did for ‘My Cause My Cleats,’” said Ford. “So they got some ideas and then I had them choose a charity, look at what they do, and then design one based around their charity.”

Some of the charities chosen were Sandy Hook Promise, Show Your Soft Side, Morgan’s Message, American Cancer Society, the Red Cross, and much more. 

“In the future, I’d love to maybe make this a bigger thing, or maybe we could explore actually raising money for the charities, but I’m kind of testing it out first using this,” said Ford.