On Friday, the San Francisco 49ers announced their community relations events for the month of December. During December, the 49ers will be weekly participants in community events throughout the Bay Area with a focus on the year-long theme of RESPECT for families, schools and the community. The featured event of the month will take place on Tuesday, December 7, 2010 as players are paired with low-income youth from the Samaritan House to embark on a shopping spree for the 49ers 4th Annual Shop with a Player presented By Visa event. For the fourth straight year, Visa will provide players with Visa prepaid cards to use as they shop in a local store in Foster City to help the youth purchase gifts for their families.
"The 49ers look forward to giving back to the Bay Area community every week, and during the holiday season, this is especially important to us. This time of year can be very challenging for many in our community and our goal is to be active role models, emphasizing the importance of giving back through our campaign of RESPECT for families, schools, and the community," said Joanne Pasternack, 49ers Director of Community Relations and the 49ers Foundation. "As we wrap up our year of community events during the month of December, we are proud of the impact we have made throughout the season with various groups. The 49ers are honored to be able to use our visibility in the community give back and to thank those who share their enthusiasm for the team all season."
The youth will also receive a CD of Visa's Financial Football computer game, which puts students' fiscal knowledge to the test in a game that combines the structure and rules of the NFL with financial education questions of varying difficulty. Financial Football can be played for free at www.practicalmoneyskills.com/football and is the centerpiece of a Visa/NFL initiative to promote youth financial literacy around the country. Volunteers from Visa will also be on hand to help the kids fulfill their holiday wishes. Visa is the Exclusive Payment Services Sponsor of the San Francisco 49ers and is the Presenting Sponsor of the Community Tuesday's program.
Other events in the month of December include:
-After players' and coaches' wives spend time building bears at the Westgate Valley Fair Mall Build a Bear Workshop, they and 49ers players will bring the individually-made stuffed toys to patients at the Lucile Packard Children's hospital on December 14th. The players will donate the bears to children who will be spending the holidays in the hospital fighting life-threatening or life-limiting diseases. Media availability will be at the Westgate Valley Fair Mall, located in Santa Clara, CA. The bear-building event will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
-Throughout the week of December 21st, individual players will be bringing cheer to needy families and children for the holidays. Details will be announced at a later date.
-To wrap up the month and a year's worth of community initiatives, the 49ers and their families will bring an "Ending the Year with Cheer" event to local low-income youth and their families. Activities will include creating New Year's resolutions, crafts and interactive carnival style games. The festivities will take place on December 28th at the Santa Clara Convention Center from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The convention center is located at 5001 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara CA 95054.
Each time the 49ers perform community service work, they educate the community about the franchise's award-winning RESPECT campaign. The RESPECT campaign teaches the necessity of showing respect for schools, families and communities, and the 49ers pride themselves on being prime examples of that with their weekly community service events.
