These insurance companies came together to raise $32,000 for the kids

Last week, employees and leadership from 20 of Philadelphia’s largest insurance firms and members of the Insurance Softball League participated in an all-day charity softball tournament benefiting the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to providing justice and healing for victims of child sexual abuse.

Participating companies in the fundraiser included ACE, AIG, Aon, Chubb, Conner Strong & Buckelew, Travelers and Philadelphia Insurance Companies. The league was formed about eight years ago by after employees from several insurance carriers held their first organized softball season.

“We decided to create an annual playoff tournament where we could come together in the spirit of competition, and also give back to the community through fundraising efforts,” Insurance Softball League Commissioner and Insurance Softball Tournament Founder Tom Caputo, adding that each team would contribute a $500 minimum donation to a deserving nonprofit to participate.

While Caputo said initially the goal was to fundraise for a different nonprofit each year, after discussing this among the team captains, the group decided to come up with more focused fundraising goal, and developed a short list of deserving charities.

“We decided to select PCA as the recipient of our fundraising efforts because of their mission in assisting children at risk, many of whom are living in bad family situations, and often defenseless and afraid,” added Caputo.

This is the fifth year the league has supported PCA through a combination of corporate donations and employee fundraising. Since 2010, the league has donated over $75,000 to PCA. This year, they raised $32,000.

“We selected The Philadelphia Children’s Alliance (PCA) because not only did we embrace their mission of providing a coordinated response to helping children at risk, but we wanted to work with an organization that was interested in coming to our events, and sharing in the spirit of camaraderie,” added Caputo. “In working with PCA’s staff, we feel we have developed that strong ongoing relationship, and this resulted in our decision to make them the ongoing recipient of our annual softball tournament fundraising effort.”

PCA, a private nonprofit, interviews about 200 possible victims a month, and relies on fundraisers such as this one (in addition to a similar golf tournament held in the fall) to fund its services.

“We’re sort of a one-stop shop for child sex abuse investigations in the city of Philadelphia,” said Chris Kirchner, executive director of PCA. “So when a child alleges that they’ve been sexually abused, there’s a lot of agencies that have to get involved.”

“We get about a third of our funding from fundraisers like this,” added Kirchner. “So we could not deliver this service to kids in Philadelphia to about 2400 kids a year without events like the softball tournament.”

Image via Ceisler Media & Issue Advocacy