{"id":239436,"date":"2026-07-09T15:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T15:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/239436\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T15:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T15:54:08","slug":"pittsburghs-pro-sports-teams-and-businesses-raise-more-than-1-million-to-battle-food-insecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/239436\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh&#8217;s pro sports teams and businesses raise more than $1 million to battle food insecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this year, the Pittsburgh Penguins, Pirates, and Steelers, along with other community organizations, announced the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/pittsburgh-food-insecurity-burgh-proud-challenge\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">#BurghProud Challenge<\/a>\u00a0to help the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank battle food insecurity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The goal was to raise $1 million to help children who wouldn&#8217;t have access to school lunches during summer vacation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, they not only met the $1 million goal, but they also surpassed it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Thanks to the incredible generosity of our community, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and the coming together of Pittsburgh&#8217;s iconic sports teams, more of our neighbors will have access to the nutritious food they need to thrive,&#8221; said Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank&#8217;s Chief External Affairs Officer Charla Irwin-Buncher. &#8220;This achievement is a powerful reminder that when we come together with compassion and purpose, we can make a meaningful difference in so many lives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When the campaign began, the Richard King Mellon Foundation awarded the food bank a $1 million grant to match donations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Over the last month, more than 3,500 GoFundMe fundraisers, 4,300 supporters from across the country, and multiple companies helped raise more than $1.5 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When the campaign began with an announcement including representatives from the Pirates, Penguins, and Steelers, a hometown kid and former Pirate, Neil Walker, made a prediction.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I bet we get over $2 million,&#8221; he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now, they&#8217;re well on their way.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a result, the $1.5 million and counting will help the food bank, as well as its network of pantries, provide food for 4.5 million meals across the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank said the money will be put to work immediately.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year, the Pittsburgh Penguins, Pirates, and Steelers, along with other community organizations, announced the #BurghProud Challenge\u00a0to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8505,73,75,74,1067,10997,1833],"class_list":["post-239436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-food-banks","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-pittsburgh-steelers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239436","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=239436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}