Thursday, March 11, 2010

Help Me Help The Yankees (Or One Of Their Players) Help Someone Else

One of the things I wanted to do this year is to donate to a Yankee-affiliated charity. By Yankee-affiliated charity I mean one of the player's official foundations, or maybe even the Yankee Universe fund. I'm going to tie the size of the donation into a statistical achievement for the player whose charity I pick. Or a team stat if I go with the Yankees Universe). I'd donate x amount of dollars per achievement. For example, if I chose CC Sabathia's PitCCh In Foundation, I might donate $10 per every win CC picks up, or $1 for every strikeout. Picking up what I'm picking down?

I do need your help though. I want to make sure I have a comprehensive list of the player's official charities. I did some Google searches and found some, but didn't break my neck searching so I'm sure there are more. The ones I found were:

  1. Derek Jeter's Turn 2 Foundation (I couldn't find how to donate so not sure they accept donations)
  2. The Jorge Posada Foundation (provides families and children affected by Craniosynostosis with emotional support and financial assistance)
  3. CC Sabathia's PitCCh In Foundation (enriching the lives of inner city youth by working to raise self-esteem through education and athletic activities)
  4. Nick Swisher's Swish's Wishes (dedicated to enriching lives and lifting the spirits of children who are facing vital health issues while providing care, comfort and support through the most difficult of times)
  5. Curtis Granderson's Grand Kids Foundation (Donations to the Grand Kids Foundation will go towards purchasing school supplies for needy families/kids, books and supplies for schools which do not get the funding they always need, establishing baseball programs as well as providing equipment and facilities in some of Michigan 's inner cities and eventually a scholarship program for graduating high school seniors)
  6. Yankees Universe - (donated to the Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. The proceeds will go to support pediatric cancer research and care, helping to contribute to advances in the treatment of children with cancer)

I'm leaning a little bit towards chossing Swisher's charity but am on the fence about it.

I saw that Mariano Rivera has one but I couldn't find a website. I found a website for the A-Rod Family Foundation but it looked like it hadn't been updated in 3 years. If anybody has information about their charities or any others, please share the info. I would sincerely appreciate it.

Lastly, I encourage everyone out there that reads this post to play along and contribute. I think it would be pretty cool if we drummed up some dough for one of their charities. I'm not made of money so I'm not planning on dropping any major cash on this. I was thinking of something between 200-300 dollars. When it comes to donating, I think there is no such thing as a small amount so I hope some people decide to take part. I am e-mailing some of my fellow Yankee bloggers to see if this can be a little bigger than just me. I think it would be pretty cool if a bunch of us connected to give to the same charity. I think we could do a lot of good.

I'll be revisiting this topic several times throughout Spring Training and the regular season. I'll update the post as I get new info and I'll definitely be updating the dollar figure as it changes. If anyone decides to donate along with me, I encourage you to share that with me.

Thanks for your time and help. It is appreciated.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

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