MISSION
THE BELAFONTE FAMILY FOUNDATION (BFF), is a public foundation with an innovative approach to creating access and opportunity for historically underserved, marginalized youth, adults and communities across racial, gender, and economic lines, offering progressive programming and resources with a demand for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
As a family having spent a lifetime serving others, The Belafonte Family Foundation has taken a multi-generational approach to philanthropy with pillars in areas that are critical to human development and success. Pillars that are diverse but not unrelated. Sadly many of the issues that have plagued our generations past continue to threaten our children and generations to come.
While the ultimate goal of global, harmonious co-existence should be pursued, a massive, imbalanced playing field exists where education, opportunity, health and well being are seemingly inaccessible to a massive swath of our fellow humans. BFF looks to do its utmost to help level that field, create access and offer pathways forward to a better life.
SCHOLARSHIPS
With an interest in the neglected category of high school students, the foundation will focus on full scholarships to private, academically renowned US high schools for the full four years. The foundation will provide annual scholarships to a select group of young, deserving high school students based on a combination of educational merit and economic need. Scholarship candidates will be drawn from the schools pool of ninth grade applicants that also meet the foundation’s educational, economic, and diversity criteria. Minority students, high achievers, and low income will be our primary focus for the recipients. Additionally, the foundation will offer similar scholarships to colleges, elementary and middle schools, as well as other types of institutions.
PROGRAMS
In keeping with the multi-generational approach, the foundation is developing programs to further elevate the human condition, focusing on our commitment to support equality, fight social injustices and create opportunities for the world’s systemically disenfranchised.
We are creating programs that focus on social justice, wrongful incarceration, sex trafficking, healthcare, and programs that offer opportunities for people to become self-sufficient, start their own businesses, and develop entrepreneurship.
BRIGHT ROAD FARMS
Bright Road Farms (BRF) is a new type of urban indoor farming initiative that will grow and supply locally grown greens and herbs to businesses, residents, and those in need in underserved communities and food deserts via a state-of-the-art training curriculum and mobile, vertical production farms.
Belafonte Family Foundation is designing a distributed farming network in cooperation with Freight Farms, Inc. to deliver access to fresh food and increased food supply, building a sustainable way for people to grow food year-round in ANY climate ANYWHERE. The Bright Road Container Farm initiative will allow us to provide the infrastructure, training, and support needed to be successful in these sustainable and scalable growing projects.
BRIGHT ROAD MARTIAL ARTS
In a world that is, for many, a gauntlet of seemingly insurmountable challenges, finding a baseline of stability is a critical piece of a young person’s healthy development. In keeping with BFF’s red thread of health and wellness throughout its programs, the Bright Road Martial Arts Scholarship will sponsor qualifying at-risk-youth in martial arts training programs across multiple disciplines, partnered with renowned academies and instructors.
Commitment to a martial arts discipline can be a life changing experience that, when practiced at the highest level, becomes an integral lifestyle component… self discovery, self control, self respect, rules of engagement, and team oriented training. Martial arts requires that you push your limits resulting in great self discovery, increased focus on inner being and synchronization of the mind a body…
“The responsibility to help carry forward the tireless commitment that permeated the diverse atmosphere in which I grew up was unquestionable. When Malena and I married and had children, the realization that this responsibility was not only ours but that of our children’s as well, fueled the founding of our innovative, multi-generational approach to the tasks at hand, incorporating lessons from the generations before us, our current experiences, needs and insights, while truly listening to the youngest of generations... that is what sets us apart. It is what drives our board, supporters and my family.”
- David Belafonte, Co-Founder, Executive Director
“What my father-in-law has achieved is nothing less than astonishing. But sadly the work is far from done. Having been so fortunate to follow along in the shadows of this amazing man, it is paramount that we use the precious present to continue his legacy. And we need to diversify the reach by including our children, and build on what we have all fought for to achieve a better world. We need to heal the divide: racially, socio-economically, gender and sexual orientation-wise, environmentally, and politically. We need to fix this mess and that can only be done generationally. Coming together for the goal of healing and thinking forward by using lessons from the past, actions from the present in order to change the future. It is time to shift the paradigm while being kind to one another.”
Malena Belafonte, Co-Founder
Thank you for your consideration and support.
We look forward to welcoming you into our family.
Please join us!