Rangers roll out new fund to control support, donations
OHL club ‘decided it was time to have someone to manage their community-giving portion’
KITCHENER — The Kitchener Rangers are extending their reach.
The Ontario Hockey League club is looking to make a more impactful stamp on the community through a new venture dubbed Rangers Reach.
The independent nonprofit organization will run at arm’s length of the team and look after the community support and donations previously managed by the franchise.
The break allows the Rangers to focus on hockey while Rangers Reach can take care of all the goodwill the team has done for decades.
“The amount of community appearances and other things that are happening pulls people away … from making sure that the hockey business is growing,” said Rangers Reach executive director Craig Campbell. “So they decided it was time to have someone to manage their community-giving portion.”
Since 2002, the Rangers have allocated more than $15 million to sports scholarships, facility upgrades, ticketing programs, kids sports and several community groups such as the YMCA and KidsAbility, among others. The team distributed $467,000 to charities alone in the 2019 fiscal year.
And that generosity will continue with Rangers Reach.
The group immediately takes over two prominent initiatives in the annual Remembrance Day sweater auction and the community ticket initiative. The latter, which was quietly rolled out last season, gave tickets to social agencies, such as the House of Friendship, so they could treat their staff, volunteers and users to a night out.
Rangers Reach will also co-ordinate the team’s monetary donations to various local groups. A grant committee will review and fulfil donation requests.
Campbell is the sole paid parttime staff while the board of directors is made up of three community staples in chair Tim Jackson (president and chief executive of Shad Canada), Lynne Short (vice-president of the Kitchener Waterloo Community Foundation) and Kelly McManus (senior director, community relations and events at the University of Waterloo).
The idea for Rangers Reach was conceived by outgoing chief operating officer Steve Bienkowski, who retires at the end of the month. “I thought it was really important that we get this out before Steve steps down,” said Jackson.
“To me, this is all a part of Steve’s legacy. He has been committed to giving back to the community.”