Curtis Granderson Foundation
A few years into his MLB career, Curtis recognized he had a purpose and platform where he could reach kids in under-served communities and provide them with access to educational and athletic opportunities. So in 2007, he established the Curtis Granderson Foundation, which also operated as the Grand Kids Foundation.
Over the years, the Foundation has hosted fitness challenges, baseball and softball camps and clinics, and funded scholarships as well as reading and educational programs. Touching the lives of thousands of young people in Chicago and in the cities where Curtis played baseball.
Through the programming and outreach with the Foundation, Curtis saw how critical good nutrition is for kids to able to learn, grow and thrive, which led him to incorporate food insecurity initiatives and overall health and wellness into his non-profit initiatives.
Grand Giving
In 2013, recognizing that many kids start their morning without breakfast, end their day without dinner and struggle through school breaks without a healthy meal, Curtis launched Grand Giving, a food insecurity awareness initiative and annual fundraiser to address the growing crisis in his hometown of Chicago.
“ One in five households in the Chicago area is facing food insecurity. ” ~ Greater Chicago Food Depository
He formed a partnership with Kroger and their local network of Chicagoland Mariano’s stores, where during the month of November donations are accepted at the register as shoppers check out. All proceeds from Grand Giving go directly to the Greater Chicago Food Depository and Northern Illinois Food Bank to be distributed amongst their food bank partners.
To date, Grand Giving has donated more than $4.5M and provided the equivalent of 45 million meals to kids and families throughout the Chicagoland area.
CBEA — Chicago Baseball & Educational Academy
The opportunity to connect Curtis’ love of baseball back to his hometown arrived in 2014 when the University of Illinois, Chicago alum made a $5 million donation to help build a state-of-the-art indoor training facility and baseball stadium at UIC, which was named Curtis Granderson Stadium.
The partnership provided a platform and place for his dream of connecting with community-based sports programs to enhance and enrich the lives of Chicago youth—and it’s where the Chicago Baseball and Educational Academy or CBEA was born.
CBEA not only gives Chicago youth access to sports education, coaching and mentoring programs, they also get the opportunity to tour the amazing UIC facilities and envision a future where they can attend college and maybe even play baseball or softball.