Editor's note: We see the joy in sports all year. This seven-part series was created to share some of the memorable, happy, heartfelt and inspiring moments from USA TODAY's reporters and columnists. 

Better Youth brought in a little over $50,000 through its fund-raising efforts last year. This year, the Los Angeles non-profit is up to $350,000.

And counting.

The difference? The Jrue and Lauren Holiday Fund.

“Talking to funders, (I can say), 'If they’re investing in us, you should, too,'” said Syd Stewart, founder and executive director of Better Youth, which provides mentoring and media arts training to kids in the foster system and other at-risk youth.

“We’ve been able to just leverage it and say, 'This is an investment and we’re worth it.'”

Grants from the JLH Fund can be a lifeline to Black business owners and Black-run nonprofits. Carla Briggs, owner of Viola’s Heritage Breads in New Orleans, isn’t sure she’d still be in business without the funding she received from the JLH Fund in 2021 after Hurricane Ida destroyed much of her operation.

But it is everything else the JLH Fund offers to grantees — weekly coaching sessions, software and technical assistance, access to other funding sources — that helps these businesses and nonprofits go from surviving to thriving.

And, often, providing a helping hand to others along the way.

“As a Black business and a woman-owned business, there’s a lot of education and support needed to cover some gaps when throwing money at it doesn’t fix it. It’s, 'How do I use the funding to grow my business?'” Briggs said. “They do more than just write the check. They help you get the resources. They create a community.”

Jrue Holiday, an All-Star guard now with the Boston Celtics, and Lauren Holiday, a World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, started the JLH Fund in 2020. They were dismayed to see small businesses and organizations struggle, often unsuccessfully, to stay afloat during the height of the COVID pandemic, and devastated at the systemic racism that continues to plague our country.

What if they could do something to address both issues?

Using the $5.3 million Jrue Holiday earned in the NBA bubble, the JLH Fund began awarding grants in 2021. They selected Black-owned businesses and Black-run non-profits in their hometowns of Los Angeles and Indianapolis, as well as New Orleans and Milwaukee, cities where Jrue has played in the NBA.

They awarded additional grants in the four cities in 2022 and 2023.

Initially, the grants addressed immediate financial needs. But the Holidays soon realized the JLH Fund needed to go further. Black entrepreneurs, both in business and non-profits, often lack access to the capital, resources and networks readily available to their white counterparts.

In a survey released earlier this year by Intuit QuickBooks, 57% of Black business owners said they’d been denied a loan at least once — well above the 37% of white owners who reported the same. It also cost Black business owners about $5,000 more to start their business than it did white owners.

White-led nonprofits are more likely — 71% to 58% — to receive corporate donations than those led by people of color, according to the Nonprofit Finance Fund. The unrestricted net assets of Black-led nonprofits are 76% smaller than those of white-led nonprofits, according to Bridgespan Group and Echoing Green.

“What we’ve learned is a lot of businesses and nonprofits are facing a lot of the same struggles and same hurdles and a lot of systemic racism. They can’t get over that hump or they struggle to get over that hurdle,” Lauren Holiday said. “We wanted to create a community that uplifts and brings together in the same way, the things that they’re lacking.

“Jrue and I, we have full understanding we didn’t get here by ourselves. Our families are so supportive, but it’s taken a village outside of them to be able to support us, to pour into us, to get us to where we’ve been. How do we create that village for someone else?”

Grant recipients are required to attend weekly coaching sessions, which can cover everything from how to raise additional funding to creating a business plan. They are provided with computer software designed for businesses and IT support. They are given mobile phones with up-to-date technology, the lack of which can be a barrier for small business owners and nonprofits.

"This business started from my savings account. Now it's not in my savings account anymore. It has a real chance to grow and have some capacity building infrastructure behind me because of this fund,” said Gevonchai Hudnall-Vogel, whose Milwaukee-based Ghetto Mantras offers self-care products and in-person wellness events.  

“It's better products for my customers, because now I'm able to purchase at a larger quantity and I can get more efficient pricing,” Hudnall-Vogel said. “I'm able to build more infrastructure, more marketing, more research. … This grant — everything that I've done, it's just been amplified on every level.”

The Holidays also have given recipients entrée into a world that, likely, would otherwise be off-limits to them. At the Holiday Classic, the celebrity basketball game they organized earlier this year as a fundraiser for the JLH Fund, they invited the friends and contacts they’ve made throughout their high-profile careers and gave away gift bags featuring products sold by grant recipients.

Hudnall-Vogel told of meeting British rapper Estelle and making sure she saw “Ghetto Mantras with Friends,” a book of affirmations included in the gift bag. Later that night, Hudnall-Vogel received a bulk order for the books from Estelle. The singer now follows her on Instagram, too.

“Just because Jrue and Lauren put me in that room,” Hudnall-Vogel said.

It’s that community that might be the most valuable piece of the JLH Fund.

The weekly coaching calls have become a network in itself, a place where recipients can brainstorm, share resources and contacts and find people to lean on when they’re overwhelmed by the demands of getting, and keeping, a small business or non-profit running.

It might seem like a small thing, but having that safe space is invaluable.

Kionna Walker, who created Next Great Architects in Indianapolis to promote interest in architecture among kids, particularly children of color, said women and people of color often have to find non-traditional ways to build their businesses because of the barriers that exist to funding and support. But it’s not uncommon for those people to then have their ideas stolen or co-opted by the very people who are supposed to be helping them.

"These are probably first-generation business owners. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know what route they need to take,” Walker said. "People like Jrue and Lauren Holiday, they give us the ability to keep our ideas and move them forward before someone else can come in and take it away.

“What they’re doing is literally setting the foundation.”

And not only for the grant recipients.

Better Youth can provide life-changing skills and opportunities for children who might otherwise find themselves trapped in the system, with few options to get ahead. A child who didn’t know anything about architecture — or design or engineering — might be inspired to pursue one of those careers because of Next Great Architect, and wind up creating a building or structure that will be talked about for generations to come.

Someone who finds themselves struggling through the long, dreary Wisconsin winter might find hope in Ghetto Mantra’s in-person event in February. The money Briggs spends on supplies and payroll will, in turn, lift up other people in New Orleans.

And on and on it goes, the ripple effect spreading far beyond from what Jrue and Lauren Holiday imagined a few years ago.

“The disparities that historically exist with Black businesses and getting funding, we know that it's really going to take someone to step in in a big way to help create not only economic change, but equitable outcomes for Black businesses,” Hudnall-Vogel said.

“This is effective change that can last a lifetime,” she added. “We can transform generations.”

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.