Tammy Briant honored as Lightning Community Hero

TAMPA, FL – The Tampa Bay Lightning honored Tammy Briant as the Lightning Community Hero this evening during the first period of tonight’s game against the Calgary Flames. Briant, who received a $50,000 donation from the Lightning Foundation and the Lightning Community Hero program, presented by Jabil, will donate the money to Community Tampa Bay.

Briant has served as Community Tampa Bay’s Executive Director for the past four and a half years. Under her leadership, Community Tampa Bay annually hosts ANYTOWN, a five-day, four-night residential leadership and diversity education program that brings together 60 to 75 adolescents, ages 14 to 18 of diverse cultural, ethnic, religious, and economic backgrounds to build a culturally diverse community from the ground up. At ANYTOWN, delegates learn to identify their commonalities and celebrate their differences. This awareness starts the process of learning to lead their communities and schools in inclusive activities that create more authentic, understanding environments, reduce conflict, and build a better society. The program features a challenging series of lessons that help delegates to become more culturally competent. Each dialogue group focuses on a theme that allows participants to engage in constructive dialogue and address the topic, its relationship to themselves, their family and friends and their community at large. The program culminates in the development of an individual action plan.

The funds from tonight’s grant will be used to support the unique mission of Community Tampa Bay and the ANYTOWN program. Since the program first started in 1991, over 4,500 Tampa Bay youth have participated. According to a case study from Central Michigan University, 74.6% of participants in the ANYTOWN program increased their scores on a multi-item measure assessing their knowledge about stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination after participating in the program.

Briant became the 579th Lightning Community Hero since Jeff and Penny Vinik introduced the Lightning Community Hero program in 2011-12 with a $10 million, five-season commitment to the Tampa Bay community. Through tonight’s game, in total, the Lightning Foundation has granted $31.32 million to nearly 750 unique nonprofits in the Greater Tampa Bay area. During the summer of 2021, the Viniks announced that the Community Hero program will give away another $10 million over the next five seasons.