Lightning's community giveback continues through the pandemic

Back in January, staff members of the Tampa Bay Lightning joined forces with Lightning Season Ticket Members at the Goodwill St. Petersburg Store next to Derby Lane for a day of volunteering.

Half of the group took a bus to nearby Gandy Beach, where the crew spent their morning picking up trash, bagging it up and hauling it away. The other half remained at Goodwill where they took a tour of the facility, sorted through donated items, categorized books and read to children.

After a couple of hours, the groups switched, with the beach volunteers coming in for a shift at Goodwill and the store volunteers finishing the beach cleanup.

Everybody met back at Goodwill for lunch.

ThunderBug made an appearance. So did Lightning alums, like Dave Andreychuk, the captain of the Lightning's Stanley Cup-winning team in 2004.

Lightning employees passed out goodie bags and t-shirts to the STM volunteers.

To someone driving by on Gandy Boulevard, it might have looked like the Lightning were setting up for a watch party.

But this was a volunteer event meant to do good in the community, one of many throughout the season the Lightning organization spearheaded with support from their STMs.

"It's Season Ticket Members coming out and giving their time, and we wanted to give them something to make it feel like it's an event with the Lightning," said Lakisha Sharpe, senior manager of membership services at Vinik Sports Group, the Lightning's parent company. "Our Season Ticket Members were hearing about a lot of what we were doing in the community and said, 'Hey, we want to be involved in those too.' And some of our members have a cause they truly believe in and have given us suggestions on companies we should partner with on volunteer outings."

Earlier in the season, a mix of Lightning employees and STMs met up at the Sons of Italy Lodge in Tampa to aid The Humane Society of Tampa Bay setup for their annual Spa-Kitty Dinner in support of their feral cat program.

The volunteers unloaded vans, set up tables and chairs, arranged decorations and provided other support where needed. This time, Lightning alums Jassen Cullimore and Mathieu Garon joined ThunderBug among the various Lightning employees helping out.

In all, the Lightning partnered with STMs for volunteer opportunities at Metropolitan Ministries, the Children's Home Network and Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful. The goal is to do at least one volunteer event with STMs a month with more on the horizon for next season.

"We have the staff that want to participate as well as our Season Ticket Members, so this is an easy win to be able to get out and provide support to some of the wonderful charitable organizations throughout the Tampa Bay area," Sharpe said. "You have to be able to step outside of our world for a little bit and see how fortunate we are."

The Tampa Bay Lightning posted numerous wins during the 2019-20 season, both on the ice and off of it in the community.

In 2019 alone, Lightning employees collectively volunteered nearly 8,500 hours, the people hours equivalent to over $200,000 and a 101 percent increase over the last four years. STMs, in conjunction with Lightning employees, donated 450 hours at five non-profits.

Business partners have asked to join forces with the Lightning as well, resulting in over 1,000 hours donated at six non-profits. More than 50 partners have social impact initiatives in collaboration with the Lightning that have contributed over $1 million back into the community.

Lightning players and coaches were responsible for nearly 1,500 total visits and player engagements in 2019 as well as over $1 million raised from team events like Coop's Catch for Kids and the Bolts & Bulls Golf Tournament, among others.

The Lightning Community Heroes program is completing its ninth season and has remained active even during the NHL pause, the Lightning Foundation granting more than $20.65 million to more than 750 different non-profits in the Greater Tampa Bay area over the course of the program. In addition to the Community Heroes program, the Lightning organization donated $746,000 to 122 different non-profits in 2019 through in-game fundraising and community events.

In addition to financial donations, player-signed items benefitted charity fundraisers, the Bolts donating nearly 1,600 pieces of memorabilia in 2019, a 19 percent increase over the last four years.

The Lightning's community hockey department distributed 150,000 hockey sticks and balls to elementary and middle schools throughout the region and built five new ball hockey rinks.

Plus, there are the various nights hosted by the Lightning throughout the season: Hockey Fights Cancer Night, Military Appreciation Night, bringing together 46 of the 70 living Medal of Honor recipients, Pride Night, Hispanic Heritage Night and more.

And the Lightning started a new initiative called Strikes of Kindness prior to the start of the 2019-20 season. On September 12, Lightning owner Jeff Vinik along with CEO Steve Griggs, Lightning employees, players, coaches, personalities, partners, STMs and suiteholders spent the day visiting non-profits, military personnel, cancer patients and teachers, among others, in a single-day giving spree that saw over 150 volunteers visit 40 sites among a six-county area around Tampa and donate another $100,000 to six non-profits.

"Under Mr. Vinik's ownership, the work we do in the community is much broader than just traditional philanthropy, which has typically meant writing checks," said Elizabeth Frazier, senior vice president of philanthropy and community initiatives for Vinik Sports Group. "It involves the entire organization."

Frazier said the Lightning have become so well-known throughout the Tampa Bay region for their philanthropy that, over the last couple years, STM's have asked to volunteer with the organization, leading to the aforementioned events at Goodwill and The Humane Society. Partners have asked to do programs in conjunction with the organization too.

"We don't want giving back to just be the foundation and community relations," Frazier said. "We want to help be the vehicle for everyone to give back. Just by leading by example and collaborating with others, now our fans got involved, our season ticket members, our partners, our players are obviously doing lots of great things. It's just so impactful the ripple effect by making a social impact and giving back who we are that now those who we do business with and those who are fans are able to come together as well."

One of the partners inspired by the Lightning's propensity for giving is The Mosaic Company.

Mosaic, in conjunction with the Lightning, started the "Goals For Food" program in 2013 and has kept it going for seven seasons, donating over 8 million meals to food insecure families in the area through the efforts of the two organizations.

As part of the program, Mosaic donates $500 for every goal scored by each Lightning player during a home game and $5,000 for a hat trick.

The Lightning have done their part too. The last three seasons, they've been the highest-scoring team in the NHL.

The "Goals for Food" program benefits Feeding Tampa Bay, Meals on Wheels and other local food bank partners and links the success of the Lightning to feeding food insecure families across the Tampa Bay region, where approximately 700,000 people, including 250,000 children, are not sure where their next meal will come from.

This season, Mosaic was set to donate $70,000. But that was before the NHL pause cancelled the final seven home games for the Lightning, including the contest March 14 between the Bolts and Detroit Red Wings where Mosaic was to present their donation check. Mosaic decided to add an additional $130,000 to their contribution, making it a total of $200,000 distributed to 14 food banks across six local counties, added to the 18 pallets of food and beverages the Lightning donated to Metropolitan Ministries and Feeding Tampa Bay.

"We kind of just sat for a little bit and tried to figure out, like with everybody else in the country and the world, okay what do we do now?" said Nikki Foster, Public Affairs Manager with Mosaic, about when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the world shut down. "We're kind of in this shelter-in-place, safer-from-home, nothing-is-happening mode. And then things started happening. People were working from home, people weren't working. Our food pantries, the need really increased incredibly. You couldn't pick up a newspaper, watch something on TV where you were not hearing about the impact it was having. And we knew because this is paramount to how we give and donate and function in the community. We knew kids weren't going to be fed. We knew that the food pantries and the food banks were going to be going into double, triple, quadruple increases because of this…And so, it wasn't a hard decision for us to say, 'Alright, how do we respond in this moment of crisis? Where can we make the best impact?' And that's what we did. We looked at the need. We identified. And we responded."

Foster said partnering with the Lightning is a natural considering the positive culture within the organization as well as how much the two organizations align on their community initiatives.

"The Lightning thrive on being a part of the community and being leaders in the community," Foster said. "And so when you partner with an organization like that, it's kind of like that ripple effect where what they do is important and it shows to our community and you really just want to be a part of that good reputation, good experience, world-class organization."

Tampa Electric and TECO Peoples Gas also stepped up in conjunction with the Lightning to assist with COVID relief through their "Community Power Play" program.

Starting in mid-June, the program selects seven recipients each week to have their monthly energy bill paid. In total, 91 households will benefit from the program over the next several months, the number signifying Lightning team captain Steven Stamkos.

"The Tampa Bay Lightning is a popular name here in Tampa and with our customers. I don't know of any customers that aren't Lightning fans," said Karen Sparkman, director of customer experience operations at TECO. "We have so many customers right now because of COVID hardships that are having trouble figuring out how to pay their bills. The need out there is so great, so the fact that the Lightning are helping us fill that need is just astronomical for us. It's huge."

Sparkman said TECO hears from a number of customers impacted by COVID that just don't know what to do. They're not aware what type of assistance might be available, so TECO tries to run through the different options out there.

The "Community Power Play" program is one of those options and one way the Lightning and TECO are trying to help.

"The Lightning is such a fantastic organization and has become a household name," Sparkman said. "I think we share a lot of the same values. Our customers, they enjoy being a part of the Lightning community and they are part of the TECO community as well. So I think it's definitely shared values, our willingness and our desire to assist mutually is what I think makes it all possible."