Dodgers win Sports Humanitarian Team for '20
Team, foundation recognized for contributions on ESPYs broadcast
Ken Gurnick
@kengurnickLOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers were named the Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year during Sunday night¡¯s 2020 ESPYs presented by Capital One on ESPN.
The award was made in recognition of the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, the franchise¡¯s charitable arm, for its work to improve education, health care, homelessness and social justice in Los Angeles. The award comes with a $100,000 award that will be used to run and fund programs designed to level the playing field.
¡°Our goal is to achieve the same level of excellence off the field that our fans demand from us on the field,¡± said Dodgers owner and chairman Mark Walter, who also is chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, in a club release. ¡°This is much bigger than baseball. We want to tackle the city's most significant challenges, such as unequal access to education, and we are striving to become the best philanthropic organization in the city working on these issues.¡±
The Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year, sponsored by Bristol Myers Squibb, honors a sports club/team that demonstrates how teamwork can create a significant impact on a community or cause. LADF has invested more than $30 million in programs and grants to nonprofits, including $21 million in the last five years. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Los Angeles Dodgers and LADF are providing 279,280 meals and $659,227 in in-kind donations to support vulnerable populations who are experiencing homelessness, food insecurity, lack of basic needs and significant anxiety.
¡°LADF was built for this moment in time," said Nichol Whiteman, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation. "The trauma of a pandemic and social justice events has exacerbated the significant disparities in our communities. We know that inequality can only be dismantled through proactive and strategic interventions, and we are starting with the root causes. This award is a celebration of our organization¡¯s accomplishments, but we are far from done. LADF will not waver. We will be part of the solution.¡±
LADF supports more than 100 nonprofits annually; has grown to serve over 10,000 youth annually through its sports-based youth development program, Dodgers RBI; provides 368,000 kids access to safe, playable spaces through its 51 Dodgers Dreamfields, including two universally accessible adaptive fields; engages 16,000 youth in the L.A. Reads literacy initiative with more than 3.5 million minutes read to date; and supports STEM curiosity in over 9,000 students through LADF¡¯s Science of Baseball curriculum.