Seahawks, Blazers, Paul G. Allen Foundation, Vulcan donating $1M+ in response to COVID-19
Paul Allen created institutes and research centers to battle disease. He himself battled cancer.
Now his legacy and what he created are helping fight COVID-19 in the Pacific Northwest.
On Friday, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation announced through the Microsoft Corp.’s co-founder’s Vulcan Inc. company and his NFL Seahawks and NBA Portland TrailBlazers teams on Friday donations to support causes affected by the coronavirus pandemic shutting down much of Seattle and the world.
The Seahawks and CenturyLink Field have committed more than $700,000 to pay part-time employees who have lost their jobs because of canceled events at the stadium in Seattle’s SoDo district.
The TrailBlazers are also paying part-time event staff members for canceled events at their Moda Center arena in downtown Portland.
The Seahawks and Blazers are donating thousands of pounds of unused food from their stadium and arena to non-profit organizations in Seattle and Portland. The Seahawks are giving 3,000 pounds of food from CenturyLink Field to Seattle’s FareStart, the YMCA and Mercy Housing Northwest.
The Seahawks are also supporting a blood drive in cooperation with Bloodworks Northwest, to raise awareness of an urgent civic need during this crisis.
Allen’s Foundation is donating $500,000 to the Seattle Foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund. The Seahawks are also making a donation to that cause.
Readers interested in donating can learn more about doing so here.
“We are all witnessing the impacts of COVID-19 and how it is harming the health, vibrancy, and economic well-being of our communities,” said Jody Allen, co-founder and chair of Vulcan Inc. and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and chair of the Seahawks and Blazers.
Jody Allen is Paul Allen’s sister.
“We are thoughtfully assessing ways we can help mitigate some of these impacts, and we are grateful to the many health care workers, partners, local and regional authorities, fellow funders and business leaders on the front lines in Seattle and Portland,” Jody Allen said in a statement issued by the Seahawks. “While we work as a community to respond to this crisis, we take seriously the shared responsibility to follow official public health guidance and be diligent in our social distancing during these challenging times.”
Vulcan Inc. is pledging $100,000 to support Seattle’s Chinatown-International District that borders CenturyLink Field. That money is to establish a response fund for Chinatown-ID restaurants that were aong the first businesses in the country impacted by the pandemic.
Vulcan will also match the first $25,000 of donations made personally by its employees to the Seattle Foundation COVID-19 Response Fund.
