A's, Home Plate Project Donate to Battle Hunger in a Time of COVID-19
With some members of the community facing food shortages, the Oakland A’s have donated $17,000 to the Alameda County Food Bank.
The donation is designed to support the Oakland Unified School District’s (OUSD) emergency meal program during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
The money will help purchase items for OUSD’s “Grab and Go” meal service. Oakland Unified students or their families, and Oakland children 18-and-under can pick up breakfast and lunch meals for free at one of a dozen locations throughout the city. These meals meals will be in available while shelter-in-place orders remain in effect.
Families can pick up several days’ worth of food at a time on Mondays and Thursdays from 8 a.m.-noon at these locations.
“This is an unprecedented time in our community, and we must continue to come together to help those who are most vulnerable,” Oakland A’s President Dave Kaval said in a statement. “We are grateful for the continued work of Oakland Unified School District and the Alameda County Community Food Bank to combat childhood hunger in our community during this time.”
The grant is part of the Home Plate Project, a partnership between Major League Baseball, Garth Brooks’ Teammates for Kids Foundation, and Big League Impact, which was founded by St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher Adam Wainwright. A’s outfielder Stephen Piscotty is one of 50 big league players serving as Home Plate Project ambassadors.
Those 50 players have raised $937,100, enough for more than 4 million meals for children in the U.S. and Canada.
The A's donation is part of a continuing community outreach by the Oakland club.
In March, the A’s made a $100,000 donation to the Alameda County Food Bank to support its work to fight heightened food availability issues in the East Bay as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter-in-place orders.
The club, which later made a 300-pizza donation to doctors, nurses and healthcare staff at Kaiser Permanente medical center in Oakland, also launched a fundraising page – www.gofundme.com/AthleticsFoodBank – where fans can make a donation to the food bank.
Individually, A’s closer Liam Hendriks and his wife, Kristi, provided lunch for City of Oakland police officers and staff and last Thursday and did the same for City of Alameda police officers and staff last Friday.
And on Wednesday, center fielder Ramon Laureano celebrated Jackie Robinson Day by providing lunch for healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente and at 24 Oakland Fire Department stations.
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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