COMMERCE CITY, CO (Rapids Foundation) - For the second straight year, the Colorado Rapids are teaming up with Lift Up America and Tyson Foods to help bring the gift of food to the area’s less fortunate on Thursday, September 10.

 

Rapids mascots and players will join community representatives' including Commerce City Mayor Paul Natale' to help distribute 30,000 pounds of chicken to non-profits and food banks in the metro area pre-selected by Food Bank of the Rockies.

 

The donation event will be held at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park next Thursday, September 10 at 12:30 p.m. beginning with a news conference, followed by the food distribution.

The Colorado Rapids strive to fight hunger through various programs created through the Colorado Rapids Community Care Foundation, the official 501c3 non-profit foundation of the club, whose mission is:

 

 

To support the Rapids Foundation's mission of eliminating child hunger, canned food collection drives are held at Rapids home games each season, a bowling fundraiser at Splitz Bowling Center with all proceeds benefiting the Food Bank of the Rockies is held annually, and school programs educating children on the importance of eating healthy, exercise, and leading a healthy lifestyle are run by the Rapids Foundation each year.

 

The Rapids also sponsor the Food Bank of the Rockies' "Totes of Hope" program with every child in the Commerce City Boys and Girls Club receiving a backpack filled with non-perishable food items to bring home to their families each week.

Founded in 2004 with a mission to give back to communities across the country, Lift Up America continues to nurture its vision of providing important necessities to families and instilling hope in the hearts of America’s less-fortunate. Lift Up America, fueled by caring corporations and individuals and powered by a humanitarian heart, aims to feed the nation’s hungry, while providing hope, hearing and vision screenings and prescription hearing aids and eyewear to American children in need. Last year, thanks to the generosity of sponsors, 15,000 children and families were touched by Lift Up America events with more than $40 million in gifts being distributed throughout the United States and Mexico.

Since 2000, Tyson Foods has been a leader in the fight against hunger. The company is actively engaged in food donation events and fundraising activities year-round to benefit those in need. The protein given by Tyson today will provide more than 120,000 meals and brings the company’s total in-kind donations since 2000 to more than 52 million pounds. This milestone equates to over 202 million meals donated to food banks and agencies serving local communities around the country. Last year alone, Tyson donated nearly 9 million pounds of protein to Feeding America (formerly known as America’s Second Harvest).
For more information on how to get involved in the fight against hunger, click hungerrelief.tyson.com.

 

Food Bank of the Rockies, a non-profit organization, distributed nearly 25 million pounds of food last year through over 700 partner agencies. Those agencies administer more than 1,000 hunger-relief programs in Northern Colorado, including Metro Denver, and the entire state of Wyoming. Of the 312,000 people served annually, 45 percent are children. In its first 30 years, FBR has provided nearly 330 million pounds of food to our member agencies, which translates to more than 250 million meals for people in need. Food Bank of the Rockies’ key programs are Fighting Hunger Feeding Hope, Denver’s Table Food Rescue and FBR’s Nutrition Network. Food Bank of the Rockies is a member of Feeding America. For additional information, please visit www.foodbankrockies.org.