In Celebrating the ESPYS, 10TH ANNUAL ALL-STAR CELEBRITY KICKOFF PARTY PRESENTED BY VAULT MEDIA GROUP & STK STEAKHOUSE, Throws a Benefit for Merging Vets and Players Foundation.

By Laura Medina

Leading up to tonight's ESPY Awards shows, the Oscar of Sports, where Hollywood celebrates and honors the best and what is best in sports, there are healthy, athletic gifting suites for dedicated, industrious athletes during the day then big-hearted bashes at night.

One of the parties celebrating the ESPYs is the 10th Annual All-Star Celebrity Kickoff Party honoring and raising funds for the Merging Vets and Players Foundation https://www.vetsandplayers.org/

It's more than physical, it's about the heart and most importantly, mental health.

The Merging Vets and Players Foundation is a buddy system where professional athletes help combat military veterans, regardless of gender or orientation or background, to help transition them back into normal, regular civilian society through health, whether it be physical fitness and nutrition to assisting in acceptance, caring, and emotional and mental support to readjust these combat veterans successfully into normal society.

A combat veteran, said it doesn't matter if you're male or female or straight or gay or white or black or brown, a combat veteran is a combat veteran and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can happen at any moment, at any time.  They need a compassionate civil buddy to help them deal with PTSD while getting back into society.

This one of the purposes of these ESPYS parties, helping those while having fun.

Remember, ESPYs parties are all about the athletes, so the dinner fare is pretty lean and mean and healthy, Market Lettuce Salad and Baby Gen Lettuce Caesar Salad with Old School Green Goddess Dressing and Blue Cheese Caesar Dressing. They make great dipping sauces for the bread rolls.

The salads and dressings pair well, with low-fat, high-protein grilled skirt steak and chicken.

They save the carbohydrates late at night, right before you hit the sack,..the dessert doughnut bar!

The doughnuts, themselves, aren't loaded with sugar but the athletes and the combat veterans were rewarded with customizing their treats by dipping and drizzling their doughnuts in french vanilla frosting, chocolate glaze, and caramel sauce then decorating them in naughty cereals, nuts, coconut flakes, and fun candy.

Last night's ESPYs Merging Vets and Players Foundation benefit was treating both the heart and the soul and the tummy.  They earned it.