Our Story
The Williams 7G Foundation
Seven generations, one purpose.
A foundation born from a sister's memory, seven young men, and The Chairman's vision for what the next generation could become.
THE BEGINNING
WHY WE started.
Chairman Williams started the Chairman's Invitational with two ideas in mind. The first was simple: give the LVD's college students and young athletes a real way to find support during seasons when fundraising felt out of reach. Times were tough, opportunities were limited, and the next generation needed a runway.
The second idea was just as practical. Every year, the Tribe does meaningful business with vendors and partners across the region. The Chairman saw the tournament as a way to turn those relationships into something more, a platform for those vendors to give back to the kids and the future of the community that does business with them.
What started as a modest tournament has grown well beyond its roots. The Williams 7G Foundation now supports food pantries, the VFW, along with young people in racing and the arts. It contributes to causes both inside the Tribe and across surrounding communities. It has become, in the Chairman's own words, something he never expected, a feeling of being able to truly give back, growing every year.
"It's such a great feeling that we're able to do this, not only on the tribal side, but for outside communities as well."
-Chairman Williams
THE HUMMINGBIRD
FOR LILLY, a sister remembered.
The hummingbird at the heart of the tournament logo isn't decoration. It's a remembrance.
Chairman Williams' late sister Lilly, the Nenookaasig-kwe. The bird and the flowers that surround it in the Foundation's logo were chosen with intention, a way to carry her memory forward through everything the Foundation does.
For the Williams family, every scholarship, every sponsorship, every young athlete given a chance carries a thread back to her. The Foundation's work doesn't just build forward, it honors the ones who came before.
Lilly
THE ORIGIN OF 7G
SEVEN BOYS, a name, a movement.
Long before the Williams 7G Foundation took its name, seven young Native men were quietly making history.
In 2017, the National Football League reached out to a group of tribal leaders with an unusual ask. The league acknowledged that it had never given back to Indian Country, and wanted to start. Could a small group of young Native athletes be brought together for the Pro Bowl?
The original group was six. Then a seventh young man was added at the last moment, and the NFL agreed to bring them all. Together with one parent each, the boys traveled to Florida and became the first Native ambassadors to the NFL. They met with the league's CEO. They shared the realities of life in their communities, the hardships, the suicide, the scarcity of opportunity. They told the truth.
When the Pro Bowl ended, the boys did something unexpected. They asked if they could keep going. It wasn't fair, they said, that only seven of them got to experience this, every Native athlete deserved that kind of opportunity. So they decided to build something.
They named it themselves. The number 7 stood for the original seven, but it also reached deeper, into the teaching of the seventh generation, into responsibility for the children of the future. The letter G was their idea, too. They wanted a single letter that could stand for many things at once, gifts, generations, guidance, glory, and more. The skills the Creator had given them, and what those skills could become.
That's where 7G came from. Not from a marketing meeting. From seven young men who decided that if a door had been opened for them, they would hold it open for everyone who came next.
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