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She's always been good enough to play with the guys. She even made history doing it.

She's always been good enough to play with the guys. She even made history doing it.

Becca Longo is making history as the reported first female athlete to receive a football scholarship to a NCAA Division II college. But it almost didn't happen.

Becca always wanted to follow in the footsteps of her football playing older brother, but joining her high school's all-male football team was easier said than done. Even once she had proven herself a skilled athlete, she still found herself facing negativity and assumptions that women can't play football quite as well as men. She worked hard and got lucky — her school let her on the team with the boys.

Sophomore year, she was a three-sport athlete, playing football, basketball, and running track. She was a kicker on the football team and the team embraced her as one of their own, as they would any other player.

Then — as if busting the stereotype that girls can't play football wasn't hard enough — Becca learned that she had a stress fractures in her back. Doctors gave her the news every athlete dreads hearing: She needed to rest.

Dismayed, Becca spent her junior year strengthening her core and watching her teammates play from the sidelines. Finally, when senior year rolled around, she was ready and more motivated than ever to compete again — and compete she did.

Her story is an inspiration to any girl who wants to play football, and any athlete sidelined by an injury — it just goes to show what doors hard work, determination, and a refusal to bow to stereotypes can open for you.

Check out Becca's journey below:

Say hello to the first woman to land a Division II football scholarship.

Posted by Upworthy on Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Family

Mother's viral story of taking her baby to a job interview hits a nerve with moms everywhere

via 314Handcrafted / TikTok

A mother's experience job hunting with a one-year-old child highlights the reality many parents face and how employers can be part of the solution.

Mother-of-two Maggie Mundwiller, 38, was laid-off six weeks after her one-year-old Mylo was born in the middle of the pandemic. Finding a job over the past year has been hard enough, let alone with a newborn baby.

"A lot of people are not able to pay for the childcare if they're unemployed even if there is one parent that is employed," she told WMUR. "You have so many other bills that you have to pay for."

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parents
Family

Mother's viral story of taking her baby to a job interview hits a nerve with moms everywhere

via 314Handcrafted / TikTok

A mother's experience job hunting with a one-year-old child highlights the reality many parents face and how employers can be part of the solution.

Mother-of-two Maggie Mundwiller, 38, was laid-off six weeks after her one-year-old Mylo was born in the middle of the pandemic. Finding a job over the past year has been hard enough, let alone with a newborn baby.

"A lot of people are not able to pay for the childcare if they're unemployed even if there is one parent that is employed," she told WMUR. "You have so many other bills that you have to pay for."

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parents
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The Elevate Prize
The Elevate Prize
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Want to be the change? Join an Elevate Giving Circle.

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If you've ever donated to a cause but worried that your contribution wasn't really enough to drive real change, you're not alone. As one person, it can be tough to feel like you're making a real difference, especially if you don't have a lot to donate or if times are tough (aka there's a worldwide pandemic going on.)

That's why, for years, the idea of philanthropy felt a little bit like a rich person's thing: if you had millions, you could donate and make change. The rest of us were just tossing pennies into a cup without really doing much.

But that's a problem: the priorities of a wealthy few don't represent the priorities of many, which means that good causes are often left underfunded, leading to a lack of meaningful action.

The thing is: it doesn't have to be like this. We can all make a difference, especially if we pool our money together.

Enter: Giving Circles. These are when groups of people with shared values come together to drive change. They do it by pooling their time and money together, then deciding as a circle where it should go. That way, they can cause a real targeted change in one place quickly in a very people-powered way by giving what they can, whether that's volunteer hours, money, or a mix of both. Best of all, Giving Circles are a social experience — you get to work together as a community to make sure you do the most good you can.

In other words, giving circles are a way to democratize philanthropy, making it more accessible regardless of your age, income, gender, or race.

That's why this year, The Elevate Prize, a nonprofit founded in 2019, is launching a new pop-up "Giving Circle" program so that problem solvers, budding philanthropists, and anyone that wants to do good can come together and drive real impact at a large scale. And you can do it all in just 90 minutes.

All you have to do is join one of the Elevate Giving Circles online. Learn about organizations doing good for the world, then pool your money together, and as a group, direct it where you think that donation could make the most difference.

But that's not all: every single donation made is matched by the Elevate Prize Foundation — basically guaranteeing that you double your impact for good. The theme for the first cycle is education, and Elevate Giving will match up to $75,000 in total donations for each cycle.

Ready to get involved? Elevate Giving experiences start June 26th, so sign up now for your spot to make a difference. There's no minimum fee to join either — so get involved no matter what you have to give. Now that's philanthropy for all.

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