Williams, Bucs donate $30K to local food bank

PITTSBURGH -- Pirates pitcher Trevor Williams and Pirates Charities announced a $30,000 donation to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank on Friday as part of the Home Plate Project.

The contribution will be put to use funding a drive-up food distribution with the Food Bank on Monday at their Duquesne headquarters, the Pirates announced. Their donation alone will provide meals for up to 1,000 families in the Pittsburgh region who are in need as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I am honored to again work with these incredible groups and make an impact locally with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank to support children and families throughout Pittsburgh,” Williams said in a statement. “The idea of the Home Plate Project is to support some of the most vulnerable in our communities and during this pandemic, we felt this help was needed immediately.”

Williams, the Pirates’ nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award last year, has been involved in a number of charitable initiatives since reaching the Majors in 2016. He has supported Miracle League programs, taken part in Pirates Charities CARE-a-van projects and most notably co-founded the nonprofit Project 34 foundation with his friend, Cory Hahn. They started Project 34 to positively impact the lives of people living with spinal cord injuries.

So it’s no surprise that Williams is representing the Pirates through the Home Plate Project, a joint initiative throughout Major League Baseball in partnership with Garth Brooks’ “Teammates for Kids” Foundation and Adam Wainwright and Kyle Gibson’s “Big League Impact.”

More than 50 Major League players from all 30 clubs raised nearly $1 million for the Home Plate Project, providing more than four million meals to support childhood hunger prevention with schools shut down amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Players, including Williams, reached out to their teammates to collect donations.

The Pirates and Pirates Charities previously donated $50,000 to the nonprofit Food Bank, a member of Feeding America, to support multiple food distribution events throughout southwestern Pennsylvania. The team has also asked fans to support Food Bank, noting that a $20 contribution at pirates.com/FoodBank will purchase one box of emergency food for an area family in need.