By Mark Gray
4:00pm PST, Jan 16, 2024
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Professional athlete Travis Kelce's good deeds stretch beyond the football field.
A local report out of Kansas City revealed that the NFL star used his foundation, Eighty-Seven & Running, to help repair an elderly longtime KC resident's home after she and her house both fell on hard times.
In January 2024, KSHB 41 reported that Travis found out about the crumbling home from former Chiefs player Otis Taylor, who's married to one of the woman's relatives.
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Travis Kelce's Eighty-Seven & Running foundation donated to the Rebuilding Together Kansas City organization, which then funded repairs on Gloria White's home.
"When we looked at her home, we realized there were lots of other things she needed — a new roof, she needed gutters, she needed safety latches on the doors, she needed work in the bathroom and kitchen," Scott Hickox, the Rebuilding Together Kansas City executive director, told KSHB 41.
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Gloria White was worried about the condition of her home after sewage leaked into the basement, so she contacted Rebuilding Together Kansas City. The house, the organization explained, needed repairs to the sewer system, new doors, new basement steps, a new hot water heater, a new kitchen sink, safety bars in the bathroom and fire safety equipment, among other repairs.
Travis Kelce's Eighty-Seven & Running foundation came to the financial rescue.
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Although Gloria White could have moved out of her home, she was determined to stay.
"I've been here 56 years," she told local new station KSHB. "They know Miss Gloria. I am about people. My parents never taught us about color; we were brought up that way, and that's what stayed with us."
Scott Hickox, the Rebuilding Together Kansas City executive director, added, "She desires to stay in this neighborhood and the neighborhood is better because she's here."
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Gloria White — the woman whose house repairs were funded by Travis Kelce's Eighty-Seven & Running foundation and carried out by the Rebuilding Together Kansas City organization — has spent more than half a century in her Kansas City home, which is decorated with photos and newspaper clippings from her life's accomplishments.
Those include photos of her as the first Black cheerleader at her Topeka, Kansas, middle school, newspaper articles about her competing at the Olympic Trials in Abilene, Texas, and images of famed athletes and civil rights leaders she's met during her long life including Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr., local news station KSHB 41 reported.
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Travis Kelce's Eighty-Seven & Running foundation's main purpose is to help underserved youth become productive citizens by mentoring and motivating them to explore and develop their abilities while learning critical life skills.
The foundation, which the Kansas City Chiefs tight end founded in 2015, provides resources and enrichment opportunities for youth and their communities through fundraising, athletic programs, mentoring, and outreach initiatives.
It also funds the Operation Breakthrough Ignition Lab, which provides a safe space for teens 14-18 who live in economically depressed and often violent neighborhoods in Kansas City with a place to go to work on STEM skills and spend time each week getting real-world experience in fields ranging from culinary arts to automotive repair and engineering. It opened in 2021 and is located in an old muffler shop purchased for the project by Eighty-Seven and Running.
