Local nonprofit receives donation of a few hundred pounds of fabric from NFL Draft

By Peyton Headlee

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    KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KMBC) — As crews continue tearing down the site for this year’s NFL Draft in Kansas City, there is a focus on sustainability.

The NFL Green program is donating raw materials used during the draft to almost a dozen local nonprofits. Things like lumber, carpet, and fabric will be reused by local charities.

Rightfully Sewn is one of those nonprofits benefitting from the draft. Their focus is on creating jobs and opportunities through the business of fashion.

“I just want to learn everything I can just about the art of sewing,” Courtney Babcock, a student in the Rightfully Sewn Academy, said. “I want to do what I love every day. This program has been able to help me gain insight and experience into how I can do that.”

Students in the Rightfully Sewn Academy learn every aspect of clothing construction. The goal is to move from the academy to employment – whether that be with Rightfully Sewn or elsewhere.

“The academy is one of the mechanisms we use to really give a job opportunity and sustainable wages to individuals we’re trying to help,” president and executive director Tyler Bennett said. “We’re workforce development. We work with individuals — a lot of them are refugees or immigrants or otherwise at risk. We educate them, we employ them.”

Bennett said the nonprofit runs on donations and the NFL just gave them a big one.

“It was a lot it was a lot of material, very heavy material,” Bennett said.

The NFL donated a few hundred pounds worth of fabric they used during the draft. The fabric was hung on fences and gates as décor.

“We’re going to use it to not have to purchase more material or fabric. We get to reuse it. It has a really cool story behind it,” Bennett said. “We saved it from a dumpster and we’re not pulling things out of a dumpster to do some really cool things with it for our students.”

For students, it gives them a platform to learn and an opportunity to try new things.

“I’ve seen them do some creative things with that already,” Bennett said. “We’ll use every bit of it, but it was quite a bit, very generous.”

“It’s amazing that the NFL was able to donate so much to help to help us out,” Babcock said.

The donation is a sustainable way to make a lasting difference.

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