A New Year:

With 2016 drawing to an end, our team at LIFT4LIFE would like to take a moment to look back over the past year to consider our progress and outline our objectives going into the next year. Furthermore, before you commence your beginning-of-the-year cleanse, we want to thank you for helping us get to this point. This has been a team effort and we are proud to have so many of you in the powerlifting/strength community behind us on this journey.

In August 2015, LIFT4LIFE was solely an idea motivated by a single encounter during a trip to Zimbabwe and it only took a few months to materialize into a reality. By January 2016, we received official recognition as a nonprofit by the United States, which allowed us to begin actualizing our mission. We immediately began planning our return trip to Zimbabwe to begin our work. During this process, we were invited to visit South Africa by Eugene Scheppers and Antoinette Kriel, to discuss the possibility of executing our plan in other communities with a lower socioeconomic status in South Africa.

The first half of this year was spent diligently raising funds, developing our brand, and growing our partnerships. We are honored to call the following organizations as affiliates of LIFT4LIFE: Challenge Barbell, The Strength Guys, Reactive Training Systems, 9for9 Media, Kenmore Barbell, Dungeon Fitness, New Level Fitness, and The Strength Theory. The combination of introducing our apparel and growing our connections in the strength community allowed us to develop our success. In July, we made our trip back to Zimbabwe where we hosted six powerlifting clinics, a strength training seminar, and developed friendships that will last us a lifetime. Additionally, we brought 300 kg of weight into the country which included two benches, a squat rack, and a bar from Challenge Barbell that was built by a local welder. Since we left Zimbabwe, our presence has remained through the training templates we’ve provided to community centers around the country, training clinics, and a mock meet.

Looking forward to the next year, we  hope that the government of Zimbabwe will finally recognize powerlifting as an official sport in the country. We will also continue to raise funds to provide community centers with the much needed equipment for training. However, our biggest goal for 2017 is to host the first sanctioned powerlifting meet in Zimbabwe this upcoming July. This would be monumental for us and the powerlifting community worldwide! It would allow us to continue our journey and expand to other countries outside of Zimbabwe. We could not have done any of this without you and your generosity. Thank you and have a lovely New Year.

From our team: As always thank you for taking the time to read about LIFT4LIFE, and you can all help us by sharing our website, liking us on Facebook, inviting your friends to the page, and following us on Instagram!

                       Spread the word and help us grow the community

                                        of powerlifting worldwide! 

Instagram: LIFT4LIFE_worldwide

Website: lift4life-worldwide.org

Facebook: lift4lifeworldwide

Link to donate: http://www.lift4life-worldwide.org/donate-now/