After the trial ended in October of 2014, when the DA said it was finally OK for us to launch the L>h Project, the very first public program we ever did was a school wide assembly at Hartford Union High School. Jessie’s school. 1500 students and teachers attended. One of them was a freshman boy named Quinn Meinerz.
No one knew it at the time, but Quinn would go on to make the HUHS football team, earn All-WIAC honors twice for traditional D3 powerhouse, and six-time national champion UW-Whitewater, be chosen in the 3rd Round of the 2021 NFL Draft by the Denver Broncos, and become a starting offensive lineman in the NFL. Let the belly breathe!
I didn’t know Quinn, but he messaged me out of the blue in September. He asked our permission to choose L>h as his cause for the NFL’s Week 13 “My Cause My Cleats.” Um …. YES!
We had been sitting on this exciting secret until Week 13 in the NFL. Quinn, THANK YOU for honoring Jessie and her mission in this way. Good luck this season and best wishes for a great NFL career.
Jessie-girl, you made the NFL. Well, at least the NFL’s Week 13 #MyCauseMyCleats initiative. Here are Quinn’s spectacular cleats, which he is giving to us!
We all know it’s too late for Jessie. But her legacy project’s vision, the end of interpersonal violence by the end of the century, is just getting started.
