The Faithful and 49ers Back at Home for the 2nd Annual 49ers Foundation Picnic

The 2nd Annual 49ers Picnic on the Field at Levi’s Stadium kicked off in grandiose fashion as over 2,000 members of the Faithful came out to enjoy a Saturday of family, food, and football. Beautiful Bay Area weather brought the Faithful out in full force as fans were hoping to catch a glimpse of their beloved team back on home field for the first time in what feels like forever. The Spazmatics provided the soundtrack to a golden day and Levy’s along with local vendors and breweries provided picnic style meals with proceeds going towards supporting the 49ers Foundation’s mission to harness football to educate and empower Bay Area youth.

49ers Foundation co-chairman Jerry Rice spoke about the importance of community and connection:

“I think events like this like this are so important because you get a chance to reach out to the community, and you let them know that you really care about what’s happening. Last year, the 49ers Foundation gave over six million dollars, it’s just an opportunity of giving back.”

I was on site at the event with Niners Nation’s Ricky Helton who took some amazing photos of the day and Ricky attached a gallery to give you an idea of how perfectly everything and everyone came together.

I have to take a moment here to give a shout out to 49ers Foundation Executive Director Justin Prettyman as well. The volunteers were awesome and really helped this event come together. It was also a great thing seeing members of the 49ers organization like Nick Clarke, Emily Lucas, and Jesse Lovejoy out there representing. Team photographers Kym Fortino, Meg Williams, and the legendary Terrell Lloyd were out there doing their thing but also out there making everyone feel at home.

This was definitely one of those “you had to be there” type of events. Jerry Rice was out there doing Jerry things and kids were playing catch with Jimmy Garoppolo. My own two kids ran an obstacle course with offensive lineman Daniel Brunskill. Other attractions included a giant Jenga, 49ers trivia with legends Jerry Rice, Keiana Martin, and Adrian Colbert, and magic tricks on stage with DeForest Buckner and Fred Warner. I found myself spending a good amount of time going down a giant slide and bouncing around in a giant bounce house with my kids. Did I mention there was giant Jenga?

The highlight of the day however was when NFL Huddle for 100 and the and the 49ers Foundation partnered with Amazon to kick off the #49ersHuddlefor100 campaign. It began with fans and players filling 1,000 backpacks with school supplies that are going to be distributed throughout the community.

My family and I were able to partake and helped the 49ers assemble backpacks that had school supplies including markers, pencils, scissors, a ruler, pencil case, glue, eraser, pencil sharpener, notebook, and a 49ers folder. Of the 1,000 backpacks, 500 will go to Operation Homefront Back-to-School Brigade to support military kids in need, 400 to CityTeam’s mobile pantry site as part of 49ers Community Day efforts, 50 to BMAGIC in Bayview Hunters Point, and 50 to 49ers Alum Dennis Brown to distribute at a backpack giveaway to underserved youth at a church in San Francisco.

Players who participated in filling the backpacks with fans were:

• Jimmy Garoppolo
• CJ Beathard
• Nick Mullens
• DeForest Buckner
• Adrian Colbert
• Fred Warner
• Emmanuel Moseley
• Trent Taylor
• Greg Mabin
• Matt Breida
• Dre Greenlaw
• Julian Taylor
• Jeff Wilson
• Colin Holba
• Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles
• Malik Henry
• Kevin Givens
• Laken Tomlinson

Huddle for 100 is part of the NFL’s 100th anniversary celebration where the goal is to get one million people to give one hundred minutes of their time to community service, totaling 100 million volunteer minutes. The 49ers will be fighting homelessness and will host a series of Huddle for 100 activations over the course of the season. Fans are encouraged to participate and tag the team and include hashtag #49ersHuddlefor100 to be entered into a contest that can earn prizes like a trip to the Super Bowl and you can find out about the whole initiative which is part of the NFL 100th Anniversary at https://www.nfl.com/100/huddlefor100/.

Last year, the 49ers Foundation invested more than $6 million dollars back into the Bay Area community to educate and empower youth. I’m already looking forward to a 3rd Annual 49ers Picnic on the Field.