CSM Productions’ Jessica Ferreira, A Foster Parent Of Two, Named Comcast Community Champion Of The Year

Nascar industry insiders are quite familiar with Jessica Ferreira. The casual Nascar fan may not know who she is, and that’s because she’s working with CSM Productions behind-the-scenes as senior director of live shows.

Nascar events are not just races. They are full-on productions, with pre-race ceremonies and concerts entertaining fans more than ever before. Ferreira is the person at CSM who orchestrates everything to make sure everything operates efficiently.

Now Ferreira, who hails from Nashua, N.H., is the 2022 Comcast Community Champion of the year for fostering two children — siblings — and working with Foster Village Charlotte to raise awareness about the almost 424,000 American children who are in foster care each day.

“I really didn’t know much about foster care at all,” Ferreira said. “I was home when sports weren’t happening and I learned about a lot of cases, with a lot of kids who weren’t in school and cases of neglect. It was something I started looking into because I had down time.

“This is personal to my girls and their family. It’s not an amazing pre-race where I nailed a flyover and our team made a huge production set that looks like a barn. This is something that really matters. Joey Logano — we were about to introduce him on the championship stage [in Phoenix] — said to me that it’s incredible what I’m doing. That meant the world to me because someone on that level is recognizing that.”

Ferreira was originally supposed to foster just one child, but when she found out there was a younger sibling who needed a home, she didn’t hesitate. She undertook the challenge of raising two kids, all while managing production for Nascar races and traveling on most weekends.

“I’m just completely humbled and blown away,” she said. “The amount of support that this could provide the foster families in the Charlotte community is unlike anything else. What it takes to be a foster parent is a lot. You’re dealing with a lot of children who have trauma.

“There are intense therapies and a lot of things you need to do to support these children who have been given a really tough start to life. I get emotional thinking about it because the amount of children this money can impact is out of this world.”

As part of being named Community Champion of the Year, Comcast will donate $60,000 to Foster Village Charlotte.

“It was definitely overwhelming in the sense that I’m very much behind the scenes with my job,” Ferreira said of when she first found out about the nomination. “To be recognized by peers for something that’s so special and personal was very overwhelming in the best way possible.”

Ferreira was nominated for the award alongside Sherry Pollex and Nascar Xfinity Series driver Josh Williams. Comcast will donate $30,000 to Williams’ selected charity, the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, and Pollex’s SherryStrong.

“At Comcast, community service is one of our core values and we believe in giving back; the Comcast Community Champion of the Year award provides us the opportunity to showcase and share the incredible stories of individuals within the sport of Nascar,” Matt Lederer, Comcast’s vice president of brand partnerships, said. “Jes truly embodies the spirit of this award and we are excited to see how this donation will help so many foster families.”

Among the past winners of this award are Joey Gase, Wade Jackson (fabricator at JR Motorsports), the Chip Ganassi Racing pit crew, Joey Logano, Mike Tatoian of Dover Motor Speedway, Bubba Wallace and Curtis Francois, track owner of World Wide Technology Raceway.