UFC heavyweight Walt Harris and his wife, Angela, have launched a foundation to help families with missing loved ones.
Aniah’s Heart Foundation—named after Angela and Walt’s daughter, who was kidnapped and killed in 2019—launched in 2020, and will teach self-defense and awareness training with the goal of preventing future tragedies.
“After we found out what had happened to Aniah, the message came from her,” Angela Harris told UFC.com, explaining how the foundation came to be. “I could hear her saying to me, ‘We have to help people, and we can’t let this happen to people.’ I knew I had to do something to help save lives and prevent people from being abducted and becoming a victim of violence. That’s when we decided to teach people about all of this and start our foundation.
“If this can happen to Aniah, then it can happen to anyone. No one is immune to being a victim. She was a normal girl, doing a normal thing and an evil person took her life, and we want people to be aware of that,” she added. “My goal is to reach as many people as possible and help everyone implement a plan. Even before you leave your safe place, you need to have a plan to keep yourself safe. That’s crucial education.”
The foundation will also strive to help people in the midst of family tragedies, as Walt notes there were few resources available to them when Aniah first went missing.
“In the midst of all the turmoil we were going through, we didn’t know where to turn during those first hours of abduction, which are the most critical,” Walt Harris said. “An important aspect of our foundation is to help guide families and loved ones during those times, as everything is a whirlwind and it’s very traumatizing. From our personal experience, we might be able to comfort families and help point them in the right direction.”
Walt Harris has been competing in the UFC heavyweight division since 2014. He’s currently riding a pair of losses to top-flight foes in Alistair Overeem and Alexander Volkov.
You can learn more about Aniah’s Heart by clicking here.