Cliff Has Your Back
Ascend Hospitality Group and Cliff Avril Family Foundation Launch the “Cliff Has Your Back” Program
Ascend Hospitality Group (AHG), the leading restaurant group based in Bellevue, Washington, has partnered with former Seahawk and Super Bowl champion Cliff Avril and the Cliff Avril Family Foundation to launch the Cliff Has Your Back program. The unique collaboration, sponsored by Amazon and the local Amazon Fresh store in Bellevue, provides underprivileged children with a one-of-a-kind, custom-designed backpack experience for the 2021 back-to-school season.
A shared dedication to childhood nutrition connected the two organizations together last fall. For the Cliff Avril Family Foundation, its mission is to increase the awareness of Type 2 diabetes in youth and to encourage healthy living through nutrition and exercise, while AHG’s main philanthropic focus is on education and feeding its communities.
“When we met Cliff and began the partnership, we were impassioned by his purpose of nourishing students and giving back to the community, particularly educating students around nutrition, health and wellness,” said Elaina Morris, AHG president and CEO. “AHG feeds people, but we also feed people’s souls — partnering with Cliff provides us with the opportunity to give back to the community that’s given so generously to us. Collaborating with Amazon and Amazon Fresh as our exclusive sponsors really brought this program full circle.”
Last September, Avril and the AHG team met at Famous Dave’s BBQ in Tukwila to create the backpack’s distinct design. Using paint-filled balloons tethered to a 10-foot-tall blank canvas, the Pro Bowler rifled footballs at the balloon targets, popping and releasing the paint to fashion the design for the bags. The design was then resized and printed on the 250 custom backpacks for students in need.
Each backpack will include school supplies provided by AHG and Amazon, as well as USDA-approved grocery shopping lists and nutritional guides, healthy lifestyle tutorials, and food education activity sheets, plus a $25 gift card to shop at any Amazon Fresh grocery store location.
From July 20 through August 18, members of the community will be able to nominate students HERE.
On Sunday, August 22, from 3-6pm, Avril and AHG will host a backpack pick-up event for all recipients at Amazon Fresh in Bellevue’s The Marketplace at Factoria for the students to start the school year on the right foot.
“I think it's extremely important that we’re fortunate enough to play a game for a living, fortunate to be in the spotlight and have a platform,” Avril said. “It's only right to be able to give back to the community that you come from.”