Triple Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah on Sunday announced the birth of The FastElaine Foundation that will focus on helping vulnerable children from mainly under-served communities as well some students from Christiania High and Manchester High Schools, educational institutions she attended during her childhood.
The first initiative to be undertaken will be a treat to be held in her home community in Banana Ground in Manchester on Saturday, December 18, when because of restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, care packages will be distributed from booths to children in the community.
Helping children from less fortunate circumstances has always been a goal for Thompson-Herah, one of Jamaica’s most decorated female Olympians. “Elaine is especially passionate about this,” said her husband Deron, while speaking with Sportsmax.TV on Monday.
Herah also revealed that initially, the targeted approach was geared towards helping only teenage girls, 13 and older, who are at risk of teenage pregnancy, abuse and who might be suffering from depression and other mental illnesses triggered by the ongoing pandemic. However, after careful thought, they decided to broaden their reach to include at-risk teenage boys as well, as some are at real risk of dropping out of school and getting drawn into gangs and other nefarious pursuits.
With this in mind, the FastElaine Foundation plans to assist with material things like providing school supplies and introducing a feeding programme while critically providing emotional support in the form of counselling for those affected.
Much of this will be achieved through partnerships with a number of international foundations. Herah disclosed that they are in discussions with the United Kingdom-based The Prince’s Trust and Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) which is based in New York.
The FastElaine Foundation is also being backed by Thompson-Herah’s own sponsors, Nike, National Commercial Bank (NCB) and Telecommunications company Flow. Thompson-Herah will also contribute to the resources from the proceeds from the meets in which she competes.
Herah revealed that the process of selecting people to sit on the foundation’s board is ongoing and is expected to be completed before the official launch set for January 2022. “We are putting qualified persons in place to ensure the smooth and efficient running of the foundation so that 100 years from now it will still be helping people,” he said.
Thompson-Herah took home three gold medals from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan where she won the 100m in an Olympic record of 10.61 and the 200m in a national record of 21.53, the second-fastest time in history. She was also a member of Jamaica’s 4x100m that won in a national record 41.02.
Following the Olympics, she ran three more times under 10.70, the first woman ever to do so and in the process, lowered her own personal best when she ran 10.54s to win the 100m at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon. It was the second-fastest time ever run by a woman. Only Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 10.49 is faster.
Source: Leighton Levy
I am a young and vibrant sports journalist from Ghana, a member of the Sports Writers’ Association of Ghana(SWAG), and working with Sports Preview Ghana and sports reporting outfit poised to bring all the latest and trending sports news around the globe.
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