Mayweather, Pacquiao Strive to Strengthen Communities

Mayweather started The Floyd Mayweather Jr. Foundation in mid-2007. This foundation is a non-profit organization that helps build community alliances, youth leadership, strong family relationships, and healthy neighborhoods, in addition to the work they perform to help combat hunger, poverty, and at-risk youths. Mayweather routinely helps provide food to the homeless and working poor, and it has become a tradition for him and his foundation to provide hot meals every Thanksgiving to people in both his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan and in his adopted home in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Mayweather Jr. steps up the efforts during the holiday season. As the superstar boxer said, “The holidays are the most important time to give back. No family should have to go hungry on Thanksgiving and no child should go without a toy on Christmas.“ Mayweather Jr. Foundation also holds different events to support Toys for Tots and help raise gifts for the less fortunate during what can be the most stressful time of year for loving parents and guardians without the means to give the gifts their loved ones deserve.

This is far from some sort of publicity gimmick, as most of this organizations efforts go largely unrecognized by the national media. It is not something that is only done during a filming of HBO’s popular 24/7 series, but operates on a year round schedule and more often than not, flies below the radar.

Helping combat hunger is only a part of this amazing foundation though, as Floyd Mayweather Jr. is also known to speak to at-risk youths. During the fourth of July weekend in 2008, Mayweather held a high-profile event in Grand Rapids which included a family friendly carnival, a car show, and a film premiere cloaked with celebrities. The carnival included many free activities for the little ones, including inflatable play areas.

The Mayweather Foundation has paid for prizes for achievement, improvement, and attendence at Stocking Elementary School in Grand Rapids Michigan, which included calculators, books, jump ropes, and gift certificates to bookstores. On April 2nd of this year, the Mayweather Jr. Foundation will be holding its first annual “Fight for our Future” benefit dinner. The evening will include a silent auction, special guests, and entertainment. “The purpose of this dinner is to continue to make strides towards helping our community” according to a statement made by Mayweather.

Manny Pacquiao, also fights for the underprivileged. He started his own non-profit organization, The Manny Pacquiao Foundation. It is hard to decipher when this was officially founded and began charity work on its own. Its official website contains a piece from February 2009, stating it was still in the start up phase, at that time.

One of the original goals of this foundation, is to help Filipino boxers and their families. As Pacquiao described in a 2007 interview with Eastsideboxing.com “it is my hope that the foundation can give Filipino boxers pensions and their children scholarships.” This doesn’t coincide with the dates on the web site, but that could be due to the problems and red-tape establishing such a massive undertaking is prone to. During the time it took to get started, Pacquiao obviously decided to widen the Foundation’s interests and areas of work, greatly increasing the number of lives it improves. It is unclear whether Manny has been able to establish a pension for Filipino boxers, but there is no doubt that through his personal generosity and his Foundation, that many youth are granted scholarships which allow them to continue their education. Thus, through their own hard-work, the youth can provide a better live for themselves and their families.

This foundation has already touched many lives through its work. Some of there work include helping victims of Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) in 2009. This natural disaster caused over $2 million (US) of damage and displaced hundreds of thousands of people in and near Manilla. Pacquaio’s foundation helped with food, clothing, money, and in countless other ways, including the simple and too often overlooked gesture of just showing care, by being there to help with one’s time and energy.

In March of 2009, he held a Fil-Am (Filipino-American) Celebrity Showdown basketball game. Most of the money went towards the underprivileged in the Philippines. Pacquiao explained, “This is for the foundation. We are giving money to medical missions, schools, and others.”

The Monday following his May 2, 2009 knockout win over Ricky Hatton, Pacquiao held a celebration and benefit concert in LA to help raise funds and awareness of the foundations work. The proceeds helped his good will work which includes a cancer and research center in Mindanao. Other notable activities of the Manny Pacquiao Foundation are other medical missions, scholarships for children, and raising environmental awareness.

Though the Manny Pacquiao Foundation is still in the early stages, the Pacman has long been involved in giving back. He has helped raise funds for various other non-profit organizations, and helped the less fortunate on his own. Manny is known for his generosity and giving of cash assistance and bags full of groceries to those in need. In fact, Pacquiao was named “Person of the Year” in the Philippines in 2003, a reward that is even more noteworthy than the numerous boxing awards he has won, including Fighter of the Decade for the first 10 years of this millennium. The Philippine’s House of Representatives passed a resolution which recognized Pacquiao as “a people’s champ” “for his achievements and in appreciation of his of the honor and inspiration he has been bringing…to the Filipino people.” Manny also owns a lottery outlet in the Philippines for the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes. This is the charity branch of the government and the proceeds go towards good causes some of which are reinvesting in health care, public services and welfare. By attaching his name to this, Manny has ensured it does better than it otherwise would.

In a very ambitious move, Pacquiao is running for a congressional seat in his home country, the Philippines. Manny has made it clear, that his reason for running is his desire to help his fellow Filipino citizens. The election is scheduled for May 10, 2010 and could factor in Manny’s decision rather to continue boxing or to retire from the ring and focus all of his energies on helping those in need.

For information, including info on how to donate, visit the official websites, which are http://tfmjf.org/ for Mayweather’s foundation and http://mannypacquiaofoundation.org/ for Manny’s.


Both Mayweather and Pacquiao are not only two of the greatest boxers in recent memory, but also two outstanding role models. Regardless of who is someone’s favorite boxer and their thoughts on Mayweather or Pacquiao’s skill or choice of competition, I think it is safe to say, that EVERYONE wishes both the best of luck with their respective foundations.