Pink Jersey, Pink Tie organizers are hoping next weekend's Olympic Club-San Francisco Golden Gate charity match and auction will generate the equivalent of a full season's expenditure for many American teams.
'In 2009, the first year this event took place, we were able to raise over $16,000 for the KAM [Kathleen Ann McClenahan] Foundation. This year we ... hope to raise over $20,000,' executive director Nick Polsky said in a prepared statement. KAM provides services for breast cancer patients and their families.
The benefit can be seen as evidence that maturing rugby teams are taking on civic roles common among America's mainstream sports. In addition to raising a sum that would be the envy of many hand-to-mouth clubs -- particularly amid economic doldrums that have traditionally hit the sport hard -- the initiative shows San Francisco's elite at work on behalf of a so-called women's issue.
SFGG, which is hosting the March 6 game at its estimable Treasure Island facility, also stages a Thanksgiving fixture to help prevent teenage suicide, inspired by the loss of a high school player. Across country, the New York Athletic Club holds an annual game to honor players, many of them in public services, victimized by the September 11 terrorist attack.
For more and more teams, as philanthropy becomes part of their repetoire, so their overall organizational capacity increases.
The Pink Jersey, Pink Tie game derives revenue from match attendance, expected to rival or exceed Super League games because the game is a cross-town rivalry, as well as a postmatch reception and auction at one of the city's better hotels. Reception tickets are available at www.pinkjerseypinktie.org.
This is great to see Clubs across the nation doing things to help their community, rather than holding "non-profit" fundraisers to fund their clubs budget.
I am sure there are other clubs out there trying to do the same.....What is YOUR club doing?
Posted by: Good to See | 28 February 2010 at 21:31
My club donates man hours to Ronald McDonald House. We also "adopt" a number of families during the holidays in a hospital's "Holidays From The Hearts" program, which means we buy and wrap presents for the whole family. These families all have a child with a significant illness and are severely financially challenged. It is very humbling when the parents' Christmas lists include things like Pine-Sol or a gas card.
Posted by: My Dinner With Andre The Giant | 28 February 2010 at 21:52
My Great Plains DIII club is very much among those listed as the "hand to mouth" variety, but we were able to raise $1000.00 for a local charity that purchases care packages for local soldiers overseas through a garden variety 7's tournament.
Sponsors who normally might think twice about contributing to a sport they've never seen, seemed eager to help out men and women serving our country (while getting their name on the T-shirt). The sponsors wound up underwriting the entire cost of the tournament and all the gate went to the soldiers.
I know down the road in Des Moines, instead of a tournament entry fee, they charge every participant a new toy, which goes to Toys for Tots.
Posted by: Steve Smith | 01 March 2010 at 09:20
doing charity is one of the best things a college team can do to improve their image and also to just plain old build some character. It is amazing how few do, and then complain about how the university doesn't respect them. Jack Clark on the ARN college podcast is exactly right. Find out what a club has to do to win "club of the year" or whatever award, distinction is out there and then do whatever you have to do to win it every single year. Not that the complaining about the disrespect isnt warranted. It isnt right how some clubs get treated because of perception. But it is rugby's job to change it at every turn.
Posted by: college | 01 March 2010 at 15:24
The point Clark makes which I find most enlightening is that many college sports suck at much of this stuff. Not only is this rugby's chance to change our sports perception, it is an opportunity to run pass several of these competing sports. I think we forget how ordinary and entitlement filled most sports are. By rugby doing just a little charity work, we run pass the sports doing none.
Posted by: charity for all reasons | 01 March 2010 at 15:53
Graduated from Scranton in '03, we did some charity work, but the current program, headed up by Bill Gregory (who also helped with the tourney for the Temple student who drowned in NJ in '08) started their own "Pink Jersey" game (raised over 5k for the ACS) and the very next day traveled to NY to run in the annual Tunnel to the Towers Run.
Proud of the team and glad to see some headlines other than a team suspended for whatever reason.
Posted by: John Ferguson | 02 March 2010 at 08:02