December 2023 Recap: Holiday Assist Campaign

The holidays are a special time of year, and an important time to give back to others. During the Sharks Foundation’s December Holiday Assist Campaign presented by Western Digital (WD), Team Teal focused on providing basic human services to community members who need it most.

Early in the month, the Sharks Foundation and Western Digital provided a $20,000 Community Assist Grant to Teen Kitchen Project (TKP). TKP was founded in 2012 by Executive Director Angela Farley after her own family experienced a life-threatening illness. In 2011 her son was diagnosed with cancer and during his treatment friends and family brought home cooked meals to help keep her family nourished. After her son’s treatment was successfully completed, she made a commitment to help others as she was helped during her time of need. TKP’s mission is to build healthy communities through food and to provide critically and chronically ill people in Santa Cruz County with home-delivered, medically tailored, free or low-cost meals. They currently deliver 84,000 meals to 750 individuals each year. Meals are designed by their in-house registered dietitian nutritionist and executive chef, prepared by teens who benefit from learning valuable workforce and life skills, and are delivered by volunteers who perform weekly wellness checks for meal recipients. On December 11, volunteers from the Sharks and WD assisted TKP with packaging some of the 10,028 December meals that the grant funds sponsored.

Later that week, the Foundation teamed up with WD to provide a $20,000 grant to Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) Bay Area. The non-profit provides wraparound services for families with sick children including housing, meals, and support services, through various programs and a 123-bedroom facility, Ronald McDonald House at Stanford. Holidays are an especially traumatic, isolating, and stressful time for pediatric patients, siblings, and caregivers, so RMHC Bay Area aims to alleviate emotional and economic burdens these families face. In addition to the grant funding, a group of the Sharks significant others decorated the Standford House to bring joy to its residents, and Sharks and WD volunteers cooked and served dinner at the house for 83 families. Ultimately, the grant helped provide housing and meals for 540 individuals benefiting from RMHC Bay Area services. To watch the meal service recap video, please visit https://www.nhl.com/sharks/video/topic/in-the-community/rmhc-bay-area-visit-6343923301112.

From December 12-14, the Foundation hosted a military-themed specialty jersey auction with net proceeds benefiting the San Jose Firefighters Burn Foundation in alignment with the Sharks December 12 First Responders game. The $2,700 donation generated from net proceeds of the auction will send three local children to the non-profit’s annual Burn Camp. The camp is free for pediatric burn survivors and provides them with a safe place to build relationships with others who have experienced the same trauma, go swimming without feeling judgment from their scars, and enjoy a day at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with local firefighters and burn unit nurses.

Also in-line with the spirit of giving, the Sharks Foundation and SAP collaborated on a $10,000 donation to TurningWheels for Kids to assist them with their annual Holiday Bike Build. The funds sponsored 50 bikes, helmets, and locks which were gifted to low-income local youth.

In total, the Sharks Foundation impacted nearly 1,250 lives through $52,700 in donations this December.