The San Diego Blood Bank, Rady Children’s Hospital, local schools and other organizations across the county on Friday were adjusting to life in the year 2017 A.C.
After Chargers.
“It’s going to leave a tremendous void in the community,” said Debbie Pollakov, co-founder of Bikes for Kids, which has worked with the team and its players for more than a decade. “I don’t think the folks of San Diego realize the extent of the generosity of the Spanos family (owners of the team) and the Chargers. We’re going to miss them terribly.”
Much of the anguish that’s surfaced publicly since the team announced Thursday it was moving to Los Angeles has focused on football. The Chargers were in San Diego for 56 years, and watching the games in person or on television became a bonding pastime for thousands of people here, a fall ritual passed down through the generations in many families. People grew so devoted they painted their houses in team colors or got lightning bolt tattoos.
But the team also left its mark in other ways — shoe giveways, holiday shopping sprees for the needy, food and toy drives — and the recipients of that charity are scrambling to figure out what to do next.
At the blood bank, CEO David Wellis said he’s hoping to continue a partnership that’s lasted 38 years, and at one point set a Guinness record for the most pints collected at a single site on a single day, more than 2,500. It was one of the few, if not the only, annual community events the entire team attended.
“We’ve relied on them heavily, to the point that I think the blood drive has become part of the fabric of the San Diego community,” Wellis said.
It began in 1979 after the team’s kicker, Rolf Benirschke, got sick on a post-game plane ride home. Multiple surgeries related to complications from ulcerative colitis required 80 pints of blood, and a call went out for donors. “People lined up for hours,” Wellis said.
Over the years, about 73,000 pints have been donated, which according to the blood bank means more than 200,000 lives have been saved.
Wellis said it’s not just how many pints were collected, but when. The drive was always held on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, as the holiday season was getting under way — a time when donations at blood banks across the United States decrease because people are busy doing other things.
“It would replenish our supplies and get us through that critical period,” he said.
Now he’s hoping the Chargers will want to do an annual drive in their new hometown. Although the blood bank is based in San Diego, it serves the wider Southern California region and has branches in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Blood collected at the San Diego drive over the years was distributed throughout the region, and blood collected in L.A. would do the same, Wellis said.
He said the blood bank will also be looking for new partners to help with a substitute yearly holiday drive in San Diego. “We’ll still need to fill the gap here in November and December,” he said.
Other long-running community initiatives for the Chargers included a back-to-school shoe distribution with Payless Shoes, which for 25 years handed out more than 1,000 pairs annually to needy kids, and an annual Toys for Tots game every December. Last year’s event was the 27th annual.
Schools are another place where the Chargers had an impact. Players routinely visited campuses. Tickets to home games were given to students to reward academic achievement or encourage better attendance. High school football Coach of the Week winners were selected during the season.
Through its Chargers Champions program, the team donated more than $5 million over the past 17 years to 125 schools. In 2016, the recipients included Southwest High School, which received $75,000 for a new weight room; Pacific Beach Middle School, which got $34,000 for an indoor cycling program; and Zamorano Elementary School, which received $30,000 for a learning lab.
Jim Esterbrooks, communications coordinator with the local California Interscholastic Federation chapter and a member of the grants selection committee, said the Chargers put the emphasis on nutrition and fitness programs because of the growing concern about adolescent obesity.
“I saw weight rooms at schools that were completely transformed,” he said. “Running tracks and parcourses were made available to the public in some communities. The impact went beyond the enrollment of the schools involved. It was a really great program.”
He said he doesn’t know what will happen in San Diego, “but there are probably some schools in Los Angeles that are going to be really fortunate.”
At Rady’s Children’s Hospital, officials are wondering about the future of their “Toss for Tots” campaign, which started in 1998. Donors pledge money for each Chargers touchdown during the season. “That’s brought in significant funding for us,” said Carol Damon-Scherer, vice president of development for the Rady foundation.
She said players often visited patients at the hospital. They donated money. “I’ve been here almost 21 years and they’ve been wonderful and supportive partners, with us every step of the way, that entire time,” she said.
And then she added a comment echoed in community organizations all across the county Friday:
“They will be missed.”
