Community Corner helps local nonprofits promote their agencies to Red Sox fans
As part of the team’s Community Corner program, Boston Red Sox personnel and volunteers will be collecting nonperishable food items at the entrance gates prior to this Saturday’s game against Minnesota at 7:05 p.m. Ticket holders are asked to bring food donations to the game.
The food drive is a part of the team’s continuing outreach efforts to help raise awareness of and support for local community groups through this new day-of-game initiative.
All food items will be donated to Community Cooperative Ministries Inc.’s Everyday Marketplace and Café.
CCMI serves Fort Myers and the greater LeeCounty area, including BonitaSprings, Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres. The Soup Kitchen serves a noontime meal six days a week to men, women and children. In addition, CCMI prepares and delivers nutritious packaged meals and beverages for the homebound hungry, offers customer choice food pantries and mobile food pantries that provide emergency groceries to families in need, serves two nutritious meals a day for the children in their Montessori Preschool and oversees a backpack program for local schoolchildren who would otherwise receive little to no food on weekends.
Nonperishable items requested include cornbread mix, cereal, peanut butter, packaged snacks, jelly, flavored rice bags and pasta, spaghetti and sauce, macaroni and cheese, handheld can openers, ramen noodles, sandwich bags, canned meats, pop-top cans of vegetables, chili, meats and fruit, as well as nonfood items including diapers, bug spray, sun block and travel size toiletries.
The Boston Red Sox Community Corner highlights various nonprofit organizations. A different nonprofit has a booth on the concourse at each home game where they can distribute information to the more than 8,000 fans that regularly attend Red Sox Spring Training games.
“Our Community Corner initiative invites nonprofit groups to bring a small number of volunteers to a Spring Training game to distribute literature and bring awareness about their organization to fans attending a game at City of Palms Park,” said Katie Haas, director of Florida business operations. “As many of our Spring Training fans are getting ready to head back up north, we are asking them to donate their unused nonperishable food to local food pantries to help those in need.”
This season’s Community Corners have included the Alvin A. Dubin Alzheimer’s Resource Center, Southwest Florida Community Foundation, Abuse Counseling & Treatment Inc., Hope HealthCare Services, Eden Autism Services, Harry Chapin Food Bank and HOPE Clubhouse and Gulf Coast Humane Society.
All Spring Training and regular season game tickets can be purchased by visiting www.redsox.com or calling the 24-hour automated ticket line at 888-REDSOX6. Fans who require accessible seating can call 877-REDSOX9. Hearing impaired fans may call the Red Sox TTY line at 617-226-6644. Fans can also purchase tickets at City of Palms Park ticket office, which is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
