Jrue and Lauren Holiday win 2023 Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Bucks guard Jrue Holiday and his wife Lauren have won the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award at the 2023 ESPYs.

They won the award for their outstanding support of Black-owned small businesses.

The couple also started a foundation called JLH to support Black-owned small businesses.

"So this is our desert studio where we offer our hot yoga classes, so we turn the temperature up to 93 degrees," said Joanna Brooks of Embody Yoga.

Joanna Brooks Runs Embody Yoga in Milwaukee. Pilates is new for them. Two years ago, Embody looked like this when Brooks ran across a grant application that felt like shooting for the stars.

"But something told me this time around to just apply," said Brooks.

She did and got a $15,000 grant from the Jrue and Lauren Holiday Foundation.

"To know that somebody, two people of that stature who have accomplished so much, saw something in me and my business, it made me feel really good," said Brooks.

They call this the jungle studio. The $15,000 grant paid for new floors, new ceilings, new windows and a whole lot of plants.

"I wanted people to come in and feel that this space was beautiful and calming and fresh. Since we received the grant from Jrue and Lauren Holiday, our sales have increased by over 200 percent," said Brooks.

The JLH Social Impact Fund's given out over $3 million in grants to black and brown business owners. The Holidays are now the recipients of the Muhammad Ali Sports Humanitarian Award.

"My goodness, they're so deserving. They got it right, it's not just the work they do, it's the life they do, so it's who they are," said Natalie Pipkin of Black Worldschoolers Mobile Bookstore.

Black Worldschoolers Mobile Bookstore encourages literacy in and outside their homebase of Indianapolis.

"We launched online in 2020, and we're doing pop up shops and even purchased a bus to be a mobile bookstore," said Pipkin.

Jrue Holiday, with encouragement from his wife Lauren, donated over $5 million of his 2019-2020 salary to start the foundation.