Pittsburgh Sports Teams Unite for a Cause

PHOTO BY ALEX JURKUTA/COURTESY OF THE PITTSBURGH PIRATES

In late 2021, Sam Reiman, director of the Richard King Mellon Foundation, saw an opportunity to help feed people facing food insecurity throughout the region.

That Thanksgiving, players for the Pirates, Penguins and Steelers had come together for the first — but not the last — time to distribute turkeys to families in need. All three professional teams had long histories of volunteering and other philanthropic endeavors, but there was something to be said about them working together to make a difference.

In this case, what if those teams — supported by the Richard King Mellon Foundation and GoFundMe — collaborated with their fans to support the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank?

 “The Pirates, Penguins and Steelers each have a strong platform and an incredibly loyal following,” says Brian Warecki, senior vice president of communications for the Pirates. “Bringing the teams together created an opportunity to reach the entire region, generate greater awareness, stronger sense of pride and make a much larger impact than any one organization could make on its own.”

The answer to Reiman’s question arrived in spring of 2026 with the #BurghProud Challenge.

Throughout June, participants in the challenge walked or ran 30 miles, backed by GoFundMe fundraising pages that they shared with family, friends and the larger community. The teams and the Richard King Mellon Foundation also offered incentives ranging from T-shirts for those who raised $25 all the way to access to special events for those who raised $2,500 or more.

 While those kinds of rewards are fun, there was an even bigger incentive for participants to really hit it out of the park. The foundation pledged to match every dollar participants raised, up to $1 million.

The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank needs all the support it can get. Using a network of more than 1,000 agencies, partners and programs, it serves an 11-county area in which one in five children, and one in eight people overall, face food insecurity. For just Allegheny County, food insecurity affects one in six children and one in nine individuals, a marked increase from two years ago when those numbers were one in eight and one in 11, respectively, according to the food bank’s “Beyond the Table” series.

The need becomes especially significant during the summer, when many children no longer have access to meals through school. Through the food bank’s Direct to Neighbors programs, it served over 882,000 summer meals to kids. All told, it provided 53 million meals to all people in need in 2025.

Meeting that need, of course, requires funding. Donations and grants accounted for approximately 93% of the food bank’s $94.5 million in revenue in 2025, according to the organization’s most recent tax filing.

That’s where fundraisers like the #BurghProud Challenge come into play.

“The teams belong to this community, and we have a responsibility to use our platforms and resources to support the people who support us,” says Warecki. He credits Bob Nutting, principal owner and chairman of the board of the Pirates, for his immediate backing of the challenge. “Bob has set the tone for our organization through his philanthropic leadership and his belief that the Pirates and Pirates Charities should be active, committed partners throughout our region.”

That tone, however, is not unique to just one team — or even all three of them together.

 “Pittsburgh has an unusually strong sense of civic pride and a genuine willingness to help its neighbors,” Warecki says. “Our teams share the same colors, but the deeper connection is the loyalty people have to this community.”

He also points to years of relationship-building by Reiman and the Richard King Mellon Foundation for pulling everyone together for the event. “They recognized how these different strengths could fit together and had the credibility with every partner to turn the idea into a meaningful campaign,” he says.

All that work and all that trust more than paid off. “The idea resonated well beyond the organizations directly involved,” Warecki says.

By the end of June, more than 3,500 people had participated in the challenge; they garnered $547,362 in donations from 4,300 unique supporters living in 43 states. As promised, the Richard King Mellon Foundation matched those dollars. It then contributed an additional $452,638 to fulfill the original $1 million commitment.

All told, $1,547,362 went to the food bank. The funds will help provide approximately 4.5 million meals throughout the region.

“That level of participation exceeded what we could have expected from an inaugural campaign,” Warecki says. “It is a strong example of what can happen when thoughtful philanthropic leadership brings together the right partners. The foundation and Sam recognized the opportunity, Bob and the other team leaders provided committed organizational support, and the community responded.”

While there’s no official announcement yet about a future #BurghProud Challenge, Warecki says, “the success of the inaugural Challenge gives all the partners a strong reason to discuss what comes next.”