Serena Williams wants Americans to stay as healthy as possible as the coronavirus pandemic continues. The tennis pro announced on Instagram that she’s helping to donate over 4 million masks to underserved schools as the school year starts this fall.
“Getting back to school this fall means having #masksforkids to wear,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’m teaming up with @bellacanvas, the National School Board Association and @scholasticinc to donate 4.25 million masks to underserved schools and provide educational materials about masks to 54 million students and all 115,00 schools in the United States.”
“Through the #MasksForKids program, schools can access affordable masks and educational materials, quickly. In addition to donating 4.25 million masks, another mask will be donated for each one purchased by the schools. I’m grateful to be able to help educate our schools about this resource, and to be given the opportunity to serve so many students,” Williams added.
The 38-year-old athlete is mom to 2-year-old daughter Olympia. Over the past several months, Williams has been getting in plenty of bonding time with her little girl, and sharing tons of cute moments to social media, including a precious photo of Olympia zipping up her princess costume.
“She’s got my back already. And I’ll always have hers,” Williams captioned the sweet pic on Thursday.
The tennis star and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, work hard to set a good example for their daughter. In June, the Reddit co-founder and executive chairman announced his decision to resign from the company’s board, encouraging them to fill his seat with a Black candidate.
In a candid conversation with Williams, Ohanian said that stepping down from the board and other decisions (he also announced he would be donating future gains from his Reddit stock to help the Black community, starting with a $1 million pledge to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp) were made “to make a better world” for Olympia.
“I thought about what those dollars could do for a community that has clearly suffered for far too long, and that I with my power and my influence and my privilege want to do something meaningful to start to show a change. To make a better world for Olympia,” he expressed.
“I wanted to put as much weight behind the gesture as I could because I felt I owed it to you and I owed it to her,” Ohanian added.
