Davin Joseph Named NFLPA Community MVP

The NFLPA Community MVP recognizes players who are making a positive impact in their local communities. Each week, the NFLPA will celebrate one player who recently demonstrated his commitment to giving back to his community, and will make a donation to the player’s foundation in support. This week’s #CommunityMVP is Davin Joseph. The St. Louis Rams guard recently unveiled the new uniforms he purchased for his alma mater’s football team.

Davin Joseph has enjoyed a long and successful NFL career, and has spent much of that time giving back to his community.

In 2011, Joseph founded Davin’s Dream Team Foundation, a dynamic foundation whose many events and programs impact a variety of people and issues. Programs benefitting student athletes are close to Joseph’s heart, but his foundation serves countless others in need, including children, the sick and the poor.

“I'm in love with giving back,” Joseph, now the starting right guard for the St. Louis Rams told NFLPlayers.com. “Davin's Dream Team is a foundation that helps people in need while also inspiring people to be great.”

Last year, the 2002 graduate of Hallandale High School made a personal donation of $15,000 to its athletic department that went towards purchasing new uniforms for every sports team. Just this past weekend, Joseph unveiled the football team’s new Under Armour uniforms and was recognized for all he has done for his hometown of Hallandale Beach, FL, during a special ceremony to retire his number 77 jersey.

“Hallandale is a city full of smart, loving and giving individuals,” Joseph said. “I've been fortunate enough to have met those great people and have learned something from those great people. They've helped shape my life.”

Joseph has long maintained close ties with the Hallandale community as an ardent supporter of the high school’s athletic program. The presentation of the football team’s new uniforms and his jersey retirement also served as an opportunity for the local community to thank him for being their community MVP.

“I feel truly blessed with the donation of the uniforms,” Hallendale High School Athletic Director Anthony Shinhoster said in an interview with Angel Williams of the Dream Team Foundation. “When I first got here last year and assessed the uniforms, I saw that it was a great need, but did not know where the funds would come from. Thanks to Davin Joseph’s Foundation, these [uniforms] have truly been a blessing to this program.”

To further benefit Hallandale, Joseph’s foundation was recently awarded a $15,000 grant from the City of Hallandale Beach toward Joseph’s Tackling Hunger for Student Athletes program. This program provides student athletes with the proper nutrition prior to engaging in their sports events.

Educating and providing proper nutrition to youth is a cause that Joseph is passionate about. During his high school playing days, Joseph’s school lacked the funds to provide his team with nutritious pregame meals. The Tackling Hunger for Student Athletes program will ensure that Hallandale area high school athletes will not have to struggle with the same adversity. The athletes will be provided with the nutritious pregame meals that Joseph never benefitted from on game days.

Although the Tackling Hunger for Student Athletes program is new to some sports at Hallandale, Joseph’s foundation has provided pregame meals, snacks and hydration products to student athletes in the Tampa Bay area for years. Since 2011, the foundation has provided more than 10,000 meals to high school student athletes in the region. High schools such as Howard W. Blake, Haines City, Tampa Bay Tech, Middleton, and Hillsborough all benefit from the generosity of Joseph and his foundation.

“The Davin Joseph foundation has really come through for us in a big way. Every year since I’ve been here, pregame meal has been a big burden on the program and the kids [because] we didn’t have the budget to pay for it,” said Jason Roberts, head coach of Tampa Bay Tech High School.

Earl Garcia, a coach at Hillsborough High School, recently expressed his appreciation as well for Joseph as well.

“Davin’s generosity,” Garcia said, “it’s about as good as it gets. We’ve never had a pregame meal like this before, and this is my forty-first year.”

In addition, Joseph’s foundation provides equipment and funding for arts programs across the Hallandale and Tamp Bay areas, as well as scholarships and college bus tours to high school seniors. In July, Davin’s Dream Team Foundation partnered with Florida Medical Clinic’s Foundation of Caring to host their inaugural H.E.R.O. Day at the Spring Hill Community Center in Tampa Bay, Florida. Volunteers from local medical clinics offered 71 free physicals.

Joseph was there to greet all of the students, providing the personal touch that makes his foundation unique. The very next month, his foundation held an event at Hallandale Beach in which 500 pairs of shoes were donated to school age children. Volunteers for his foundation washed the feet of every child, and provided new socks, shoes and even a book bag full of school supplies.

Joseph is a shining example of the good that NFL players are capable of doing in their communities. In October, his foundation will host its Golf Classic in partnership with the Florida Medical Clinic Foundation of Caring, its second event benefiting the foundation this year. In November, the Dream Team Foundation will host its 8th Annual Thanksgiving Dinner Give-Away, providing 150 needy families with their Thanksgiving meal.

For additional information about his foundation and upcoming events or to make a donation towards Davin’s Dream Team Foundation, please visit http://davinsdreamteam.org/.