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The Christamore House Family and Community Center has been serving the near-west side of Indianapolis and Haughville areas since 1905, with most of that time spent in a 100-year-old building at 502 N. Tremont St.
La’ Toya Pitts, who grew up playing and learning at Christamore House and became its executive director in 2018, is well aware of the aging facility’s limitations and was extremely excited when her not-for-profit was chosen to receive a $250,000 NBA Cares All-Star Legacy Project donation that will be used to renovate the building’s gymnasium, revitalize its wellness room and install a new science, technology, engineering, art and math lab.
“I came to the Christamore House as a little bitty kid,” Pitts told a crowd of NBA and Pacers Sports & Entertainment officials Thursday when unveiling the new Live, Learn or Play Center. “You know, some people may have different stories, but I turned out OK.”
Pitts took special note of the new bathroom, which she said went from resembling a janitor’s closet to being better than the one in her own home.
As part of NBA All-Star 2024 in Indianapolis, NBA philanthropic arm NBA Cares is facilitating more than $3.5 million in charitable contributions to support Indiana not-for-profits and historically Black colleges and universities, as well as 50 social impact and youth basketball events. An estimated 4,000 youth will get involved in events hosted by the Jr. NBA.
More than $1.2 million has been invested in Legacy Projects grants, including the Christamore House, which received additional donations of $100,000 each from the NBA All-Star 2024 Host Committee and the Herb Simon Foundation.
It’s not the first time a major sporting events has had a big charitable impact on Indianapolis.
Una Osili, an expert on global philanthropy with Indiana University’s Lilly School of Philanthropy, noted that the Super Bowl hosting gig in 2012 also gave Indianapolis not-for-profits a boost. At that time, organizers pitched in $11.3 million to build the Chase Near Eastside Legacy Center.
What the All-Star Game lacks in comparison to that investment, it might make up for in true social impact. Osili said what has changed since then is the amount of focus placed on funding underserved communities.
This is shown in part through a partnership with the Be Nimble Foundation, which provides grants primarily for business owners of color, and through deliberate partnerships with HBCUs.
“There’s been a lot more attention to underserved communities, just with the pandemic, recognizing the disparities that exist,” Osili told IBJ. “And if you look at basketball, especially we’ve seen that basketball players both the NBA and the WNBA have been very vocal about speaking out on these issues.”
Osili noted that 80% of the NBA is made up of Black players, a statistic mentioned by Commissioner Adam Silver at the Economic Club of Indiana Luncheon on Thursday.
Some of the largest donations this weekend will be event-based.
Both the Boys & Girls Clubs of Indianapolis and Special Olympics Indiana will serve as beneficiaries of the NBA All-Star Game, representing the Western Conference and Eastern Conference teams, respectively.
Each organization will begin with a starting donation of $100,000 with the opportunity to raise an additional $240,000 for the organization whose team wins the game.
As part of a partnership with State Farm, an additional $1,900 will be raised for each assist during the game that will be split between the two organizations.
A similar arrangement is set for the three-point contest, sponsored by soda brand Starry. Starry is donating $50,000 to the NBA Foundation to support the HBCU community. If any player scores 30 points in a round, Starry will donate $300,000
Aside from the direct donations, Osili said the amount of attention brought to local not-for-profits and issues championed by NBA and WNBA players can have a lasting impact.
“What we don’t often pay attention to is the philanthropic impact and the fact that the individual players themselves have their own charitable causes, and a lot of them are focused on youth initiatives,” Osili said.
The projects also connect volunteers to new opportunities.
The NBA has estimated that between 6,000 and 8,000 volunteers will participate in All-Star related philanthropic efforts. The bulk of those volunteers are taking part in the 24-hour Million Meal Movement event, which will provide shelf-stable packaged meals to food pantries across Indiana, where 11% of the population was food insecure in 2020, according to Feeding America. In Indianapolis, that issue is even more pronounced.
The day-long event that features 6,000 volunteers working in 90-minute shifts will especially help food banks battling a shortage in shelf-stable foods, Marcie Luhigo, executive director for Midwest Food Bank Indiana, told IBJ.
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