PHOENIX — If Kyler Murray returns Sunday in Seattle, that's a big boost for the Cardinals' high-scoring offense. The more points they score, the more hungry mouths they feed across Arizona thanks to the newest Cardinal, Zach Ertz, and his Ertz Family Foundation.
Zach, his wife Julie, and The Athletes' Corner are always looking to feed more families, so if you'd like to help provide more meals through the Score More N' Feed More campaign, you can do so at theathletescorner.org.
"Immediately when we got traded out here and the response from the community out here, we said, 'Hey, we really want to get involved doing something,'" said Ertz. "So, we decided to partner with The Athletes' Corner to start a campaign where every touchdown we score on offense or defense, 5,000 meals [go] to our community out here in Arizona."
It's called the Score More N' Feed More campaign, and it's not the first time Ertz has tackled hunger alongside the Arizona-based non-profit organization, The Athletes' Corner.
"Food insecurity is something that is so prevalent, and so we came up with this concept of linking our meal donations with the performance of the players or the team on the field," said Brennen Creer, co-founder of The Athletes' Corner. "So, we launched an initiative with them called 'Holiday Touchdowns for Meals' last year, and we ended up providing 600,000 meals to food banks in Philadelphia."
"The same week that Zach got traded to the Cardinals, we immediately all linked up and we said, 'Let's run it back.' Let's see what we can do to basically help fight hunger in the state of Arizona," Creer said.
The Ertz Family Foundation was started three years ago by Zach and Julie, an accomplished professional soccer player. For her, this hit close to home as a Valley native and Dobson High School graduate.
"It's where you grew up, you have just this connection, so being back and being able to find a way to kind of give back in a small way to the community is always incredible," Julie said.
To this point, roughly 65,000 meals have been donated to the four Feeding America food banks across the state. Given that one dollar can provide enough food for seven meals, the Cardinals offense and the Ertz Family Foundation are helping a lot of people in need.
"I feel like there's something about food, obviously it's such a necessity, but it also brings community around food," said Julie. "Being able to give back in that way as well, so more touchdowns is good. More points and more food is great."
"It's just a small way to show our appreciation of how this community has received us and welcomed us to this community," said Zach. "And hopefully we can give out a lot of meals."
