'I think Milwaukee is such a special place': Jrue and Lauren Holiday have profound impact on city they had to leave behind
The idea started in their hearts, wrapped in hope, and guided by a greater sense of self.
Lauren and Jrue Holiday wanted to help and inspire others while affecting change to social and economic constructs. This was no small thing. Such a task – née a concept – could be paralyzing.
“We firmly believe in ‘just start,’” Lauren said. “And then you can create something beautiful.”
With Jrue’s return to basketball during the NBA “bubble” in 2020, the couple hit start by donating $5 million of his New Orleans Pelicans salary to begin a fund that would support Black-owned nonprofits, businesses, educational institutions and organizations that serve their communities.
Their respective hometowns of Indianapolis and Los Angeles and their NBA home in New Orleans were on their minds. But mere months after the JLH Fund began to take shape, the couple were told they were headed to Milwaukee.
Yet Jrue Holiday the point guard wasn’t coming to just play basketball for the Bucks. Lauren and their two kids weren’t just tagging along. Something bigger was coming with them.
A motto in Jrue's childhood home to which he and his three siblings adhered is: You’re on God’s assignment. And your assignment is to love your community and build community.
A friend of Lauren’s texted her right after the trade to the Bucks went public in November 2020: You’re going there for a reason.
As Jrue returns to Milwaukee on Thursday as a member of the Boston Celtics, that idea can be touched, that hope realized, the beautiful thing created. The JLH Social Impact Fund has awarded 134 grants, 20 of which went to Milwaukee businesses or nonprofit ventures.
“That’s truly what happened here,” Lauren said. “It’s blown our minds and I feel like we’re just scratching the surface.”
Jrue and Lauren Holiday’s impact in Milwaukee
Though the Holidays couldn’t physically get out into the community upon their arrival in the fall of 2020 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, they immediately began working to fold Milwaukee’s needs into their mission.
In the inaugural “Class of 2021” of the fund, seven businesses and six nonprofits were aided with grants.
Soul Brew Kombucha, founded by Alesia Miller, was one of them.
“Being a JLH grantee was probably one of the highlights of my career as a new entrepreneur,” she said. “Being from Milwaukee and being able to be seen doing the thing that I love – it’s a social impact fund – and for you to be highlighted for doing the things that one, you love, two, that are helping the community, is amazing.”
Miller spoke while in Los Angeles over the summer for what the Holidays call a “family reunion,” a chance for grantees to get together, network and foster a true sense of community. She was flown out from Milwaukee, along with 2023 grantee Shannon Ross. Ross received a grant for his nonprofit, The Community, which helps recently incarcerated people transition back into society.
“It was just the acknowledgement that what we’re doing is relevant, or it's meaning something to folks,” Ross said of what the grant meant. “Other people looking in and are saying, that’s something that we should support, that’s something that other people need to get behind, and we can elevate that.”
Brandon Currie sat in the office of STRYV365 at 633 E. Locust St. and reflected on his time with the Holidays. It’s a comfortable, inviting setting. Also part of the “Class of 2021,” Currie’s nonprofit creates customized, non-clinical trauma-informed programming for children. Lauren Holiday sits on its board.
“Jrue and Lauren have meant a lot to us, from not only belief in myself as a CEO of STRYV365 but also belief in the city itself,” Currie said. “Taking the time to commit resources and their own personal time to the city as well as the minority-owned businesses in the city has really made a huge impact and brought a lot of hope – not only to those organizations but to the city itself.”
And for those awarded grants through the JLH Fund, the money – while necessary – has become almost a secondary part of the mission. The grantees who spoke to the Journal Sentinel said the Holidays personally, along with the JLH Fund staff, have remained in regular communication with them over the year or years and gave them the tools to take that initial grant money and turn it into something more. Contacts are provided. Crowd-funding mechanisms are taught. They hold “reunions” and fundraisers, like at the “Dual Court Classic” in Los Angeles in August, to bring people together to brainstorm and share best practices and advice.
Sitting at a table in the Brady Street location of her Twisted Plants restaurant, co-owner Arielle Hawthorne said that support was perhaps the most important thing.
“A lot of business owners don’t have formal schooling or formal business training, so just having them there every step of the way of showing us what we need to do and how to do it, I think that was a really great benefit,” she said.
There were some other perks, too. If Lauren couldn’t make it to one of Jrue's games, she’d drop a text and offer up her tickets. Jrue held events at which his teammates and coaches were in attendance. He even brought Powerade to Embody Yoga to feature Joanna Brooks and her studio in a House of Highlights spot.
“It wasn’t just writing a check and then wishing us well,” Brooks said. “I think it really speaks to the heart of the type of work that Jrue and Lauren were doing beyond just giving their dollars. Just how much they were invested in and cared about this community and about the city, too. Any chance they had an opportunity to shine a light on or uplift the grantees, they would do that.”
These are the stories that matter most to the Holidays.
In an interview with the Journal Sentinel over the summer, the couple shared the following about how they’ve seen that idea in 2020 turn into something so much more.
Jrue: "It’s definitely become reality where we have thousands of applicants, people who are again, applying for this grant, applying for our fund, and yes that does make it feel good because I feel like there are more people that we can touch, more people that we can connect through our fund and just be able to again, provide hope for them. I feel like you’ve seen their hope turn into reality. You’ve seen them grow, and if you get a chance to talk to them just how great, hopefully, it’s been during our cohorts, during our meetups and our family reunion. Hope has definitely turned into a reality."
Lauren: "I think for us it’s really the community that we’ve built. Now, our grantees aren’t just like desperate for money, they’re desperate for the community that we’ve created. That has very little to do with Jrue and I and everything to do with our team and everything to do with the businesses and the nonprofits that we started with. Now, I hear we get applicants and we’re like they’re overqualified, right, and they’re like we don’t even care about the money, we want the community. So, to build something like that, I think that’s what we’re most proud of and something that we want to continue to build because I feel like that is really what changes lives."
More: Jrue and Lauren Holiday win Muhammad Ali Sports Humanitarian ESPY Award for community efforts
Holidays still connected to Milwaukee even after trade
And many of those changed lives are in Milwaukee, even if the nature of the Holidays physical relationship to the city has changed.
On Sept. 27, the Bucks acquired one of the top 75 players in NBA history in point guard Damian Lillard. To get a player of that caliber, a certain level of player had to be given up – and Jrue Holiday was that player. It was a stunning move in the basketball community, but it was equally surprising for those who had gotten to know the Holidays off the court.
"The news was definitely shocking," said Currie, the STRYV365 CEO. "I think it caught a lot of people off guard. And when you build those relationships, it comes back to the personal connections, the personal time, the trust that’s earned on both sides from us as a grantee to them as a grantor. It goes beyond just this transaction.
"The idea is that their belief in us as an organization and the other grantees was that, hey, we want to create transformative relationships where what you do as an organization really impacts the city. So, them being gone, not here, obviously it’s a loss, but the relationship hopefully is going to continue to grow and evolve. We’re still in touch with them and I know that they still care about us as an organization but also the city."
After turning on the digital menu boards in her Twisted Plants restaurant, Hawthorne agreed wholeheartedly.
"I was very shocked and surprised," she said. "I don’t think anyone saw it coming. The Holidays have been just a pivotal force in Milwaukee and they assisted a lot of businesses in the community. I think all of us were pretty sad. My other entrepreneur friends and people that I know that they’ve helped, it was kind of saddening."
But they didn’t speak of the Holidays in the past tense.
More family reunions are being planned. Milwaukee will continue to be represented in the fund. The network is strong. And a community is always bigger than one person, and Milwaukee grantees are learning like their cohorts in Los Angeles, Indianapolis and New Orleans that it’s bigger than any one location.
“In terms of thinking about the type of person that I want to be, being around them and seeing how generous and giving and humble they are, that really inspired me and motivated me to try to remember as I grow in my business journey with Embody Yoga to do some of those same things,” Brooks said of the lasting impact of the Holidays and the JLH Fund.
“To continue to give back to people, to remain humble and to really focus on people instead of like the numbers or the profit or the revenue or the things like that. I think it can be really challenging at their level, the amount of money that they have to be those type of people. So I think that really speaks to their character and the people that they have around them. And again for me, it was just really, really inspiring to see.”
Milwaukee is a ‘special place’ for the Holidays
The Holidays call Boston home now.
And while the late September trade was heartbreaking for many in the city, on several levels, there is a new assignment.
When the Bucks host the Celtics on Thursday night at Fiserv Forum, Jrue will be in Milwaukee as an opposing player for the first time since Dec. 11, 2019. Then, he was a member the Pelicans and Milwaukee was just another stop on the NBA road schedule. It’s so much more than that, now.
“I think Milwaukee is such a special place,” Lauren said. “I feel like we were there for a reason, not only to give back to that community but for them to pour into us. It truly feels like home when we’re there. Our kids, the team, the organization, everyone feels like family like that. And then to have our grantees there too has just been a bonus. So I feel like really being in Milwaukee – when my friend said, hey, you’re there for a reason – it was also for us, too. And that’s been really cool.”
Jrue agreed.
“I think just kind of the feeling we get when we think about Milwaukee, how when we first went – didn’t really know what to expect,” he said. “And then at this point knowing that like, it’s a place that will always be dear and near to our hearts, is a good feeling.”
JLH Fund Milwaukee grantees
Sacha Simmons, Pick Fresh Delivery
Alesia Miller, Soul Brew Kombucha
Dr. Robert “Biko” Baker, ROCS Software
Montreal Cain, MERA
Joanna Brooks, Embody Yoga
Jalen Greenlee, Flora Fruit Company
Talethea Thompson, PumpFive Fuel Delivery Service (no longer in operation)
Dontrell Fells, Black Space
Sharlen Moore, Urban Underground
Jamon Lewis, Adullam Outreach Inc.
Markasa Tucker-Harris, African American Roundtable
Brandon Currie, STRYV365
Lakesha Jones, Future Urban Leaders Foundation
Nadiyah Johnson, Jet Constellations
Emerald Mills, Turning Tables Inc.
Danell Cross, Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, Inc.
Isiah King, Re-Imagine Education, Inc.
Gevonchai Hudnall-Vogel, Ghetto Mantras
Arielle and Brandon Hawthorne, Twisted Plants
Shannon Ross, The Community
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Jrue and Lauren Holiday's fund has long-lasting impact on Milwaukee
