\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFamous faces in Pittsburgh came together Thursday night to celebrate 50 years of the Ireland Funds. Overlooking a sea of green, former Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin and his wife, Kiya, accepted the Patricia R. Rooney Community Impact Award at the Ireland Funds Pittsburgh Gala at Acrisure Stadium. \u201cIt\u2019s often said, you know, we\u2019re not here for a long time, we\u2019re here for a good time. Like, you have to choose. And you know, I think our experience here in Pittsburgh with the great Steelers organization exemplifies that we were here for a long and really good time,\u201d Tomlin told the crowd. The gala was Tomlin\u2019s first formal public appearance since stepping away from the team in January. Tomlin did not openly discuss his decision and Thursday night was no different, as he skipped out on a scheduled media opportunity. He instead voiced his appreciation for the Steelers and the Steel City during his speech. \u201cIt\u2019s been an honor to serve the greatest organization in sport. It\u2019s been an honor to be a part of this great community, to call home, for our kids to call home,\u201d Tomlin said. \u201cWe\u2019re in somewhat of a nomadic business, so we don\u2019t take that for granted.\u201dAward-winning actor Michael Keaton showed his Pittsburgh pride with a Terrible Towel in hand when he was honored with the Daniel M. Rooney Ambassador\u2019s Award. \u201cWhen you look at what\u2019s going on in the world and not far from this country, the chaos and the cruelty, and the lack of vision and the small-mindedness and the meanness. And organizations like this that are pretty big, but by comparison, they\u2019re flying under the radar, and they\u2019re about generosity and kindness and decency,\u201d Keaton said.The Ireland Funds was founded in 1976 with three goals in mind: peace, culture, and charity. The initiative was started by former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland and owner of the Steelers, Dan Rooney, and Anthony J.F. O’Reilly.It has since grown to assist thousands of organizations worldwide. \u201cIt, kind of, started out slow, to now see it, there are events across the country and different cities around the world. It\u2019s great to see,\u201d said Steelers President Art Rooney II. The Ireland Funds has raised more than $750 million.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tPITTSBURGH \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Famous faces in Pittsburgh came together Thursday night to celebrate 50 years of the Ireland Funds. <\/p>\n
Overlooking a sea of green, former Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin and his wife, Kiya, accepted the Patricia R. Rooney Community Impact Award at the Ireland Funds Pittsburgh Gala at Acrisure Stadium. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s often said, you know, we\u2019re not here for a long time, we\u2019re here for a good time. Like, you have to choose. And you know, I think our experience here in Pittsburgh with the great Steelers organization exemplifies that we were here for a long and really good time,\u201d Tomlin told the crowd. <\/p>\n
The gala was Tomlin\u2019s first formal public appearance since stepping away from the team in January. <\/p>\n
Tomlin did not openly discuss his decision and Thursday night was no different, as he skipped out on a scheduled media opportunity. <\/p>\n
He instead voiced his appreciation for the Steelers and the Steel City during his speech. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been an honor to serve the greatest organization in sport. It\u2019s been an honor to be a part of this great community, to call home, for our kids to call home,\u201d Tomlin said. \u201cWe\u2019re in somewhat of a nomadic business, so we don\u2019t take that for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Award-winning actor Michael Keaton showed his Pittsburgh pride with a Terrible Towel in hand when he was honored with the Daniel M. Rooney Ambassador\u2019s Award. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at what\u2019s going on in the world and not far from this country, the chaos and the cruelty, and the lack of vision and the small-mindedness and the meanness. And organizations like this that are pretty big, but by comparison, they\u2019re flying under the radar, and they\u2019re about generosity and kindness and decency,\u201d Keaton said.<\/p>\n
The Ireland Funds was founded in 1976 with three goals in mind: peace, culture, and charity. The initiative was started by former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland and owner of the Steelers, Dan Rooney, and Anthony J.F. O’Reilly.<\/p>\n
It has since grown to assist thousands of organizations worldwide. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt, kind of, started out slow, to now see it, there are events across the country and different cities around the world. It\u2019s great to see,\u201d said Steelers President Art Rooney II. <\/p>\n
The Ireland Funds has raised more than $750 million. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Famous faces in Pittsburgh came together Thursday night to celebrate 50 years of the Ireland Funds. Overlooking a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7217,63085,63084,63083,86,18659,63082,7492,60803,5069,73,75,74,1829,3690,29563,18181,78],"class_list":["post-137005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-country","tag-decency","tag-good-time","tag-great-steelers-organization","tag-home","tag-honor","tag-ireland-funds-pittsburgh-gala","tag-michael-keaton","tag-mind","tag-peace","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-steelers","tag-thursday-night","tag-tomlin","tag-world","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}