top of page
Mission

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

In the ever-neglected world of education, the foundation has created its Bright Road Scholarships, focused on  a select group of young, deserving students in education, the performing arts, and martial arts based on a combination of educational merit and economic need. Minority students, high achievers, and low income are the primary focus for the recipients.

Scholarships
1669564826-IMG_1524_edited.jpg

PROGRAMS

In keeping with its multi-generational approach, the foundation is developing programs creating relief and opportunities for the world’s systemically disenfranchised youth and communities.

​

We are building initiatives that focus on health and wellness, social and food justice, and mentoring to help enhance quality of life and add to the probability of a better future.

Programs
Bright Road Farms

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.

BRF Deck 1.jpg
Bright Road Martial Arts

MENTORING THROUGH MARTIAL ARTS
 

The Belafonte Family Foundation’s Bright Road Mentoring through Martial Arts program is designed to help young people find their way 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. 

 

The initiative was created as an alternative path to a positive lifestyle for young people who have a great need to be part of a group, and often choose the wrong group simply because of this very real need for support from peers and elders, even if that choice puts them on a wrong path. The benefits a martial arts lifestyle teaches commitment to self control, self acceptance, and self respect that can be an enlightening way of life for those who live it. Bright Road is a way to reach these young people before, during and after they possibly engage in potentially negative life altering behavior.

 

When practiced with commitment and consistency many of these art forms become an integral lifestyle component... self discovery, self control and respect, rules of engagement through safe team oriented training. Martial arts requires that you push your limits, commit to self discovery, increase focus on inner being and synchronization of the mind and body...

​

For those that qualify and wish to pursue a deeper training commitment, the Bright Road Martial Arts Scholarship is available to qualifying at-risk-youth in martial arts training programs across multiple disciplines, partnered with renowned academies and instructors.

Inaugural Gala 2023

Logo Belafonte Foundation WHITE-WHITE-DS.png

“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

DB Heasdshot SC.png

“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

Mim Headshot SC.png
BFF Logo v2 2023 WHITE TRANSPARENT 500x500.png

Thank you for your consideration and support.

We look forward to welcoming you into our family.

Please join us!

Contact Us

Thanks for submitting!

Contact Us
bottom of page