Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, NFL GOOD Talk with Isaac Rochell
Do gooder himself isaac, rochelle of the los angeles chargers, he’s a nominee for the walter payton man of the year award the nfl’s highest honor we’ll, be talking all about the good he’s up to off the field through the do good foundation, local human and see you On sunday, hey there isaac we’re all on good vibes i’m, so excited about this conversation. Oh me, too, i’m so excited to have the chance to talk to you about all this good that you’re doing so. You are one of 32 nominees for this year’s walter payton man of the year award. So i had the chance to talk with connie payton last week just about how important the award is and what it means to her to see so many players actively out in their community all trying to make a difference in her late, husband’s, honor and i’m. Just curious what that means to you: does the gravity of that ever sink in yeah, it’s, actually, it’s funny you bring that up. When i was in elementary school, i actually did a project on walter, payton, really yeah it’s. I mean it’s crazy uh, even though i made it to the nfl period like that’s, one crazy layer and then being a nominee is another crazy layer, but did a did a project on walter payton and one of the things that was so important about that project Is obviously all that he did off the field and you know who he was as a person so it’s, a tremendous honor.
I mean uh when, when you tell me that she was talking about it, it kind of takes it to the next level because that’s, you know that that makes it real but uh. I think we all just share collective understanding that you know football is. Is the game, but you know helping people and making a difference. Is a mission and it’s just been it’s, been so cool for me to have the work that i’ve done recognized um, you know, it’s just been it’s, been a really cool experience for me now as a nominee you’re part of a twitter contest hosted by nationwide insurance And isaac you’ve won three of the four weeks. That means you already have over 57 000 for the do good foundation right, yeah, no it’s, crazy, it’s, crazy and we uh. You know, like i just mentioned fundraising to you. Our company started eight months ago so, like local humans started the apparel company, which i have one of our shirts on. We started raising money to donate, to meals on wheels. That was like our first month started that in our first campaign we were able to donate five thousand dollars to meals on wheels. Once we did that we are kind of like shoot we have like we, we have something going like if we were able to sell you know almost a thousand shirts and and donate that amount of money um we had. We have like a grass grass, so we kept going um and then what that eventually turned into is now you know.
Like you said, we have the foundation, we have a team of about eight people, helping us run everything we’ve donated over a hundred thousand dollars through t shirt, sales and uh and donations. I think for me, um it’s, like this is like when i think about like this award and like what our, what our mission is as athletes and our impact that we can make it’s responding to things like the pandemic and responding to these different uh world things. Going on and doing something with action – and i think our company has done a crazy job, great job of like responding with action um so it’s just been unreal. We’Ve partnered with people to put on events like uh we’ve done. You know christmas present giveaways, uh christmas dinner drive, throughs thanksgiving drive, throughs, like all these different things. We did a christmas tree, giveaway we’ve partnered, with different people and organizations to uh to donate and then also we’ve done. The t shirt sales. So through those two things, yeah we’ve been able to do a lot of massive things with helping people but it’s, just like i said, it’s been really organic. Just natural growth, um it’s been fun. What keeps us going, though, is i’m so competitive, so me too yeah. So you get it jamie. Obviously i want to help people out. That is like i wouldn’t, be doing this otherwise, but now i’m like how can we grow this company and that’s, where you know like i was discussing with you, the fundraising you know: how can we get better with all of our social media website all these things? So we want to just keep growing this thing i mean, like i said, the more we grow the more we help.
Um we’re, not like we’re, not like other companies, where we just are one for one like we’re donating everything. You know i don’t make any money from this um. Okay, so i’m, a little bit obsessed with see you on sunday, oh yeah, i um. When i you know, when i read about some of the stuff that you were doing, i you know, i looked it up and i’ve been on a couple of event on your twitter page, because i wanted to see all the fun stuff that you were doing with Twitter but um, how did how did cu on sunday come to be? This is such a neat organization and such a great mission. I i support it holy and i feel like do. Gooder needs to part be a part of this. Maybe we need to do a see you on sunday and kind of take saturday off so yeah. No, we should definitely talk about it. So see you on sunday is. Let me rewind when i when i entered the league um, i was like you know everybody when you get in the league. All these young athletes, myself included we’re, told how important our brands are. I mean everything that i did at notre dame and in the nfl is very like build your brand, which i think is absolutely true. Along with that comes you know. Taking on this mindset of part of my brand is my social media, which it is but there’s by products to building that brand and spending so much time on these apps, like you know, you think about excessive time on them.
Comparing yourself jealousy all these, like things, emotional byproducts, that come with just trying to build your brand, so i recognized that um and i actually got to the point where i wanted to to delete my social media uh. My agency was like shouldn’t: do that because again brand brand brand um, so i was like you know: why not start talking about social media health, so i started this campaign that was inviting people to take a day off of social media on saturdays. So i would post every friday and be like all right tomorrow: i’m offline i’ll see you on sunday and that was three years ago and so now, with local human, having grown the way it has now we’re starting to develop. You know a basic, basically a calendar of events to to supplement the social media time on saturdays with you know, doing other cool things, so we just launched our first event: the virtual 5k um we had 100 people participate, which was really cool because we only promoted It for five days you know that’s on us, but um regardless. It was just a really cool event, and you know we had surveys. A hundred percent of the people that filled it out said that they were more aware of their social media use because they kind of had this other thing to do when we were talking about it yeah. So you know i could talk about to you on sunday for days but it’s, just such a cool, a cool thing to be talking about which is social media health, and i think what see on sunday does there’s a couple things.
One people are talking about social media like uh, the downfalls of it, but they’re not offering really a solution. What we’re doing is offering a solution that’s one and two we’re, also recognizing that social media is like very, very necessary. You know i mentioned it to you. This idea of having a brand my brand in a lot of ways is contingent on like how like social media and presenting it on social media, so it’s more complicated than just saying, delete the apps right because it’s a necessary evil, yep um, so we’re we’re in A weird place, like i mentioned before the call where we’re trying to get really really strategic um about what we do moving forward. Yeah. How do you see um? You know the organization going in the future. Do you have you know what are what’s? One big goal that you have: we have a group of people that are now on our team that are doing a tremendous job. I mean it’s, like they’ve, really helped us take it to the next level. I think uh, you know as far as like impact and what we see ourselves doing. We really see ourselves talking more about mental health than anything you know see you on sunday is something that we’re all passionate about talking about. Mental health is something we’re all passionate about, so we want to. We want to create a environment where people are talking about social media health. Another thing that we’re that’s kind of been on the back burner that that we’re, going to focus on more now, especially with this with these donations, that we’re getting um is, is talking about financial literacy as it pertains to uh mental health because there’s a really strong Correlation between mental health issues and being financially illiterate or in a financial like survival mode situation.
So we have. We have a number of things that we want to develop again, see you on sunday and that program will be called mental wealth um. So we we have things that we’re we’re really going to be focused on here in the next month or so who, when you were growing up who’d you look up to who i mean obviously walter payton right, you did. You did a a project on him, but are there other leaders or mentors that you kind of looked up to, for you know the way they handled themselves in life and the things that they were able to accomplish for others yeah? I you know, i really looked up to kobe. I feel like he he’s had like a very like from the public image standpoint. He’S had a very or had a very up and down career, but i feel like if you look back at what he did now and i feel like i always kind of recognize this. He really did do a lot for the la community. He also like, i even think now about what he did for like women in sports, with his daughters like he’s, just he i i think he really checked a lot of boxes. He was a guy that i really really really looked up to um and we actually had the opportunity to meet him uh and even even his mindset competitively. I think like helps me now like when i think about that.
It helps me with local human and with the do good foundation because again it’s, you know i’m competitive and i want to grow what we’re doing um. So i guess i guess my answer is kobe um, because he was just he was. He checked every box yeah and i think it i think it also is just humans like just want to do good and to feel good about doing good and like they see that and it’s contagious um. You know it’s you’re, looking at some of the people that are the most visible doing good and that feels good like it’s, just like very contagious in that sense, yeah do you have a story of you know a person or a project that you’ve done? That really impacted you, the most um, so one thing that we’ve really taken pride in is the idea of being facilitators. So we just we love the idea of of like. If you want to donate, you don’t necessarily have to go find somewhere to donate. To you. Can just buy a shirt and that’s donating um in the same way, we’ve partnered with people in companies to facilitate making these events happen, like i mentioned the drive through and whatnot, so we actually had our thanksgiving drive through and we had 100 volunteers sign up, which Was super cool um and we had about 25 that participated and actually came to the drive thru, and there was one lady in particular afterwards that came up to me and she actually started crying.
She broke down and she was just explaining how how good it felt to be there and how fulfilling it was to be there. I think um. You know it’s so easy to think about and when i say easy, that’s, not the right word. We should be thinking about people that are underprivileged under resourced in all these things and impact them, but i think oftentimes we forget about the people who do have resources and that do you know they have everything they need, because those people um you can impact in A totally different way – and you can start this – really cool cycle of doing good and paying it forward. So i think when, when she came up to me and she was crying, you know it kind of clicked like we’re we’re like for the people in all senses, you know just because again she has all these resources. Doesn’T mean that she can’t be the most impacted person here um. So it was just a really cool realization. You just don’t even realize it. It’S literally, is and it’s classic example, just waving to somebody somebody be having the worst day ever and you just waving to them. They’Re, like oh shoot, somebody actually carried the wave to me. I always tell people this if people do want to, you know get involved in what we’re doing they can go to our website at localhuman.com, but you know it’s just awesome. I i look around and i see everything that people are doing and it’s just cool to be in those conversations it’s cool to be.
You know somebody that’s considered for this award next to some of the most influential people in the nfl, so it’s an absolute honor and i’m sure the chargers are very, very honored and happy and proud of you too, so yeah no it’s they they they really are, And they’ve helped so much with different things with local human um i’m. Also pretty forward. Just like how i was like hey jamie. Can we talk about fundraising like that, with the people and uh on the charger staff, because you know collectively we’re all contributing to making a really big difference so um yeah i’m thankful for them? Well, thank you again, i’m. So grateful. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me for sure. Thank you.
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