11.04.07
QUESTION: The Ilitches make a lot of money. What do they give to charity?
ANSWER: The total comes to more than $4.4 million a year in support of Michigan-based charities. This includes donated money, sponsorships and in-kind contributions, according to Ilitch Holdings Inc.
Companies owned by the Ilitch family have been giving back since shortly after Mike and Marian Ilitch founded Little Caesars with one pizza store in 1959. Back then, they sponsored a youth hockey team.
That effort grew to become the Little Caesars Amateur Hockey League,* which has enabled tens of thousands of young people to play. In addition, players receive $20,000 in college scholarships a year.
Over the years, through nearly a million dollars in grants, Ilitch Charities for Children reports supporting health, education and recreation. One grant helped build an infant day care center at COTS, Detroit's largest homeless shelter. Other grants have provided wigs for sick children, a play area for kids in a hospital waiting room and the reinstatement of a Detroit baseball tournament.
Since 1985, the mobile Little Caesars Love Kitchen has fed nearly 2 million people around the country at shelters and disaster areas, said Karen Cullen, vice president of corporate communications for Ilitch Holdings. In a new program, Little Caesars provides U.S. military veterans with up to $68,000 each if they qualify as Little Caesars franchisees.
The Marian Ilitch-owned MotorCity Casino has sponsored a Habitat for Humanity home, backs neighborhood cleanups and has provided the top corporate fund-raising team for two straight years for Make-a-Wish's Walk for Wishes Detroit, Cullen said. It's one of the top five U.S. casinos in raising money for United Way Community Services.
*The primary benefciary of Ilitch chairitable funds
ANSWER: The total comes to more than $4.4 million a year in support of Michigan-based charities. This includes donated money, sponsorships and in-kind contributions, according to Ilitch Holdings Inc.
Companies owned by the Ilitch family have been giving back since shortly after Mike and Marian Ilitch founded Little Caesars with one pizza store in 1959. Back then, they sponsored a youth hockey team.
That effort grew to become the Little Caesars Amateur Hockey League,* which has enabled tens of thousands of young people to play. In addition, players receive $20,000 in college scholarships a year.
Over the years, through nearly a million dollars in grants, Ilitch Charities for Children reports supporting health, education and recreation. One grant helped build an infant day care center at COTS, Detroit's largest homeless shelter. Other grants have provided wigs for sick children, a play area for kids in a hospital waiting room and the reinstatement of a Detroit baseball tournament.
Since 1985, the mobile Little Caesars Love Kitchen has fed nearly 2 million people around the country at shelters and disaster areas, said Karen Cullen, vice president of corporate communications for Ilitch Holdings. In a new program, Little Caesars provides U.S. military veterans with up to $68,000 each if they qualify as Little Caesars franchisees.
The Marian Ilitch-owned MotorCity Casino has sponsored a Habitat for Humanity home, backs neighborhood cleanups and has provided the top corporate fund-raising team for two straight years for Make-a-Wish's Walk for Wishes Detroit, Cullen said. It's one of the top five U.S. casinos in raising money for United Way Community Services.
*The primary benefciary of Ilitch chairitable funds
Note: on Ilitch Holdings, Inc. revenues of $1.6 billion per year, $4.4 million represents a mere 0.27% of revenues.
A 2004 article in Forbes notes both the mean and median giving among American billionaires is at least 4% with one giving away as much as 64% of his wealth. The average among the Forbes list of billionaires then was 14%.
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