Lift Up America Charity Donation

New York City

August 2006

Lift Up America is a collaborative effort of companies including Tyson Foods, Give the Gift of Sight (a Luxottica Group foundation), Starkey Hearing Foundation and Interstate Batteries working with professional and college sports teams and local nonprofit agencies to provide the gifts of food, sight, hearing, hope and comfort to our nation's less fortunate.The objective of the Sept. 12 event in New York City was to encourage individuals and corporations to be "heroes" by reaching out to the less fortunate.

Corporations provided goods and services to Lift Up America that were distributed to the less fortunate at a large, one-day distribution event. These corporations included Tyson Foods (protein), Luxottica (vision care) and Starkey Hearing Foundation (hearing aids) and Interstate Batteries (batteries). Added to this were "hero celebrities", Navy seamen and sport celebrities from the New York Giants and the New York Yankees who helped to load humanitarian aid onto the trucks of 100 "hero agencies" of New York City. These "Hero Agencies" distributed the aid to those in need throughout New York City.

On a sunny, Tuesday morning on the day after the 5th anniversary of 9/11, Empire helped Lift Up America organize a singular aid distribution event at Pier 92. Approximately Seven trailer loads of food and other goods were distributed with the help of volunteers, the US Navy and US Marines who arrived on the USS San Antonio.The distribution event also featured a press conference on the waterfront highlighting representatives from each corporation and partner.The successsful event distributed a great deal of aid in many forms to over 100 local relief agencies.Empire was delighted to be a part of the Lift Up America team and provided staging, sound, lighting, electrical power distribution, rigging, onsite management and stage management.