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IT IS WITH DEEP GRATITUDE AND A FULL HEART THAT I INTRODUCE TO YOU: COMMUNITY ARCHIVES—A LIMITED-EDITION ZINE CREATED TO CELEBRATE FIVE YEARS OF ADIDAS PURPOSE, AND TO HIGHLIGHT THE COMMUNITY-DRIVEN PROJECTS THE TEAM HAS PLAYED SUCH AN INTEGRAL PART IN...

One of them being the Ahmaud Arbery Foundation, which was launched in the summer of 2021 following the racially-motivated murder of my son the year prior. The Scholarship Program, which we partnered on with adidas Purpose, was born from both love and loss—love for Ahmaud and for every young person who deserves the chance to pursue their dreams, and the loss that reminded us how precious and powerful every life truly is.

Our first call with adidas came not long after I lost my son. I was nervous. The grief was still raw. They spoke to me like I was a mother first, and a partner second. They said: “We stand with you, and we are going to help you build.” Soon after, we planned a community celebration in Atlanta and asked for a few items to give away. A truck pulled up, and it was no small donation—it was a statement that they saw the size of the need and intended to meet it with both hands.

From there, they stayed close. They didn’t just send a logo and step back; they helped me think through the launch of the foundation, stood beside us at events, and kept asking the right questions: Who will this help, and how will they feel? That was the moment it clicked. They didn’t want to be near a story—they wanted to be part of the healing. I remember standing at one of our events and watching kids try on shoes and smile like the world had tilted toward them, for once. I thought, “This is what partnership should feel like: Respect. Presence. Follow through.” When a company moves like family, you notice.

I carry my son's name with trembling hands. If Ahmaud’s name is attached to something, it must be careful, it must be honest, and it must help people. I show up with integrity, even when it is hard. I will not trade truth for applause. I steward every dollar like it came from a kitchen table and a family’s faith that their small gift could make a big difference. I was a single mother; I know the cost of gas, the fear of a bill that won’t wait, the ache of wanting more for your child and not knowing how to open the next door. When I meet a student or a parent through the foundation, I try to meet them the way I prayed someone would meet me: with dignity, with time, with real help. And that’s where ‘community’ comes in.

Community is the place that catches you when the world goes quiet. It is the knock on the door that you’re afraid to open, from the neighbor who stands there anyway—with food, a prayer, and their time. Community is the choir that sings when a mother’s voice has broken. It is strangers who refuse to stay strangers because they recognize your child in their child and your pain in their own chest.

I think about volunteers setting up water stations for a memorial run, about elders who sit with our young people and tell the truth, about a teacher who takes extra minutes to help a student finish a scholarship essay because she sees a future there. That is community. We see the same hurt, we name it, and then we roll up our sleeves and change it.

Community is also a promise. It says to every child on every block: you belong here. You are safe here. You can walk and run and dream and you will be met with care, not suspicion. When I say the word ‘community’, I feel both the fear that comes from what we have survived and the courage that rises when we stand together.

The AAF Scholarships are a blessing I feel in my bones. Since 2021, we have awarded more than fifty thousand dollars, including to students from Brunswick High—the same halls my son walked. They wrote about Ahmaud, they served their neighbors, and they registered to vote. I think about one mother who told me the scholarship turned a worry into a plan. That is impact you can touch: tuition paid, books bought, and a young person who can walk onto a campus believing they belong there.

I want the foundation to outlive me and to outshine the pain that started it. I want Ahmaud’s name to move from sorrow to a steady light in communities that have known too much fear. I dream of scholarships that open doors where there were none, youth programs that turn bystanders into protectors, and neighborhoods where every child can run free and come home. I want our work to change the everyday: a school counselor who knows exactly which student to call about a scholarship because we built that bridge, a coach who knows how to talk about manhood with gentleness and strength because we trained him, a block where people know each other’s names because they met at one of our Run With Maud events and kept talking.

Most of all, I want mothers to sleep easier. If one mother breathes a little deeper because the streetlights feel safer, if one teenager decides to vote because he knows his voice matters, if one family feels less alone, then my son’s legacy is doing what love does. It is making a way. It is turning grief into good and inviting all of us to keep going together.

EXPLORE THE FULL DIGITAL COMMUNITY ARCHIVES ZINE ACROSS TRENCH.

This article has been produced in collaboration with adidas Purpose, Pitch Blend and TRENCH.