The bodybuilding and fitness community is made up of many people that have important roles that help make the sport and industry the massive force it is today. Those roles range from Jake Wood’s leadership as the owner of the Olympia to the expeditors that help the athletes stand in their positions onstage so the judges can determine who is the best that day, and everything in between.
Tim Gardner has several roles in the sport, including as a judge, the promoter of the Tampa Pro and Chicago Pro shows as well as the Olympia’s World Fitness Expo’s director. Gardner is one of the people that gives everything he has to make the sport better because of how much he loves bodybuilding.
As important as those roles are, he gave himself an even more important one that makes an even bigger impact on children. Gardner, a byproduct of the foster care system, created Fostering Dreams of Tampa Bay, a charity that helps and supports children in foster care.
“We are more than just a foundation; we are FAMILY.”
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Their website reports the mission as “to create a brighter future for every child in need.” Children are usually placed in foster care because they are suffering from lack of stability with their families through no choice of their own. Gardner knows about this firsthand as the son of a military father and immigrant mother. “Little Timmy” was removed from their custody after the local child welfare agency was notified that he was being left alone overnight without supervision.
He found himself in an orphanage for a short time, then adopted by a family in North Tampa. This newfound stability led him to excelling in school and becoming a model student. Unfortunately, that would not be the happy ending many kids would hope for.
Less than two years later, he was back in his biological father’s custody with his mother losing all visitation rights. As a result, the father and son moved frequently, and by the time Gardner had entered junior high, he had already been in 12 different schools.
Regardless of the walls Gardner learned in, he zoned in on each class and found school to be the escape that served him best. He would be among the top students every school year. Sports was a great escape as well, and the positive reinforcement from coaches served him well.
The “escapes” were from his home life, where he was being abused and neglected by his father and stepmother. The climax of this was when Gardner was 16 years old, leaving his
father’s home and moving in with a football coach and his family. That was also a temporary setting for him, however.
Ultimately, Gardner forged his own path. He was living out of a car at one point, but he persevered to graduate high school, secured a residence for himself, and worked several jobs to support himself.
M+F Magazine
From Being Mentored to Mentoring Others
Gardner credited mentors that believed in him for helping him move on to college and receive higher education. As rough as his developmental years were, he managed to not only survive but thrive. That experience made him aware of two things; many kids don’t have that type of fortune, and he could do something about that.
Thus, he created the foundation, and they have been giving all they can to helping the kids that have next to nothing ever since. A presence alone can make a positive difference, and Gardner’s negative experiences can now be used as a positive resource to change the course of many kids’ futures.
The importance of the work speaks for itself as well. According to their research, 25 percent of students in foster care will not graduate, half will develop a substance abuse, and 70 percent of women under 21 will get pregnant.
Gardner knows that these outcomes are preventable, and that the tide can be turned in their favor with the right guidance, support, and most importantly, love. There is no research to back the last component, but many adults that have been children in the system will tell you firsthand that those that have not received the most love appear to be the most capable of providing abundances of it. Through Fostering Dreams of Tampa Bay, Gardner can express love and support to children that could change their lives.
“Every child deserves a second chance and the opportunity to pursue their dream.”
