Derby City Gaming Celebrates Two Years of Sandefur Dining Room Partnership
LOUISVILLE, KY., (March 4, 2021) — Churchill Downs Incorporated property Derby City Gaming is proud to be celebrating two years of service to The Sandefur Dining Room and $75,000 in financial support. The historical racing machine facility has developed a strong relationship with the Louisville nonprofit and regularly coordinates employee volunteering in addition to their aforementioned partnership.
“Food insecurity and homelessness has been part of Derby City Gaming’s community focus since we opened in September of 2018,” says Derby City Gaming President and General Manager Tim Bryant. “Being a sponsor of Let’s Dance Louisville in 2019 helped introduce us to the Sandefur Dining Room. We saw firsthand the good work that they do and how thankful those who were provided meals were. Ever since then, our Food & Beverage Team has made a commitment to prepare and participate in distributing free meals every month. The level of homelessness and number of people experiencing food insecurity is alarming, and the Derby City Gaming team takes pride in volunteering and providing meals through Sandefur Dining Room.”
In the wake of their most difficult year to date, Sandefur Dining Room discussed the increased hardships they faced during the pandemic and offered their gratitude to Derby City Gaming for their continued support through a challenging year:
Without a doubt, COVID-19 upended all of our lives. During this time, not only were the less fortunate families and individuals affected, but so were the organizations they turn to for assistance. With donations and volunteers on the decline, who was going to help those who help others? This is a story about the people, an outreach program and a community that had the odds against them, and how Derby City Gaming came to their aid.
Let’s start at the beginning. A staple in the community, The Sandefur Dining Room of the Cathedral of the Assumption began responding to the needs of the hungry in Downtown Louisville during the Great Depression. Today, they have a broader outreach program, Feed My Neighbor. They believe feeding the hungry is not only core to the community, but it makes Louisville a better place to live.
Before COVID-19, they were able to serve hot lunches daily in The Sandefur Dining Room through the help of an army of volunteers. Guests were permitted to come in and sit down, out of the elements to eat their lunch. All that has changed.
Since the start of COVID-19, volunteers are down because most of them are elderly, retired and in the compromised category. On top of that, Feed My Neighbor had to make adjustments to how they served meals. Instead of hot meals in the dining room, people now receive packaged food in a lunch bag. To prepare them, volunteers are required to wear gloves and masks as well as perform daily cleaning tasks. All of these safety precautions come at an additional cost.
To make matters worse, funding is down because their largest annual fundraiser, Let’s Dance Louisville, had to be canceled and will most likely be canceled in 2021. Much like the people they serve, Feed My Neighbor needed someone to take a chance on them. That’s where Derby City Gaming came to their aid.
In 2020, Derby City Gaming agreed to be the Presenting Sponsor with a $60,000 donation. The impact of their generous support enabled Feed My Neighbor to continue serving 3,300 meals a month to some of downtown Louisville’s most vulnerable.
“This donation is what is keeping our kitchen open. Feed My Neighbor is so lucky to have Derby City Gaming as our partner.” said Maggie Cyphers of Feed My Neighbor. The Director of the Lunch Program, Paul Tadatada, also added, “Derby City Gaming’s staff has brought a full turkey dinner, shepherds pie, and lasagna, among other things. They always smile and have fun while down here. We’re grateful for everything they do for the kitchen!”
In these tough times, it’s good to know that services like Feed My Neighbor and Louisville’s homeless can depend on valuable partners like Derby City Gaming to give a helping hand when they need it most. — David Grantz
About Churchill Downs Incorporated
Churchill Downs Incorporated is an industry-leading racing, online wagering and gaming entertainment company anchored by our iconic flagship event, the Kentucky Derby. We own and operate three pari-mutuel gaming entertainment venues with approximately 3,050 historical racing machines in Kentucky. We also own and operate TwinSpires, one of the largest and most profitable online wagering platforms for horse racing, sports and iGaming in the U.S. and we have seven retail sportsbooks. We are also a leader in brick-and-mortar casino gaming in eight states with approximately 11,000 slot machines and video lottery terminals and 200 table games. Additional information about CDI can be found online at www.churchilldownsincorporated.com.
Information set forth in this news release contains various “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the “Act”), which provides certain “safe harbor” provisions. All forward-looking statements made in this news release are made pursuant to the Act. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the use of terms such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “predict,” “project,” “seek,” “should,” “will,” and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently.
Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include the following: the effect of economic conditions on our consumers’ confidence and discretionary spending or our access to credit; additional or increased taxes and fees; public perceptions or lack of confidence in the integrity of our business or any deterioration in our reputation; loss of key or highly skilled personnel; restrictions in our debt facilities limiting our flexibility to operate our business; general risks related to real estate ownership, including fluctuations in market values and environmental regulations; catastrophic events and system failures disrupting our operations; online security risk, including cyber-security breaches; inability to recover under our insurance policies for damages sustained at our properties in the event of inclement weather and casualty events; increases in insurance costs and inability to obtain similar insurance coverage in the future; inability to identify and complete acquisition, expansion or divestiture projects, on time, on budget or as planned; difficulty in integrating recent or future acquisitions into our operations; costs and uncertainties relating to the development of new venues and expansion of existing facilities; risks associated with equity investments, strategic alliances and other third-party agreements; inability to respond to rapid technological changes in a timely manner; inadvertent infringement of the intellectual property of others; inability to protect our own intellectual property rights; payment-related risks, such as risk associated with fraudulent credit card and debit card use; compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or applicable money-laundering regulations; risks related to pending or future legal proceedings and other actions; inability to negotiate agreements with industry constituents, including horsemen and other racetracks; work stoppages and labor issues; changes in consumer preferences with respect to Churchill Downs Racetrack and the Kentucky Derby; personal injury litigation related to injuries occurring at our racetracks; weather and other conditions affecting our ability to conduct live racing; the occurrence of extraordinary events, such as terrorist attacks and public health threats, including the ongoing impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19 virus); changes in the regulatory environment of our racing operations; increased competition in the horseracing business; difficulty in attracting a sufficient number of horses and trainers for full field horseraces; our inability to utilize and provide totalizator services; changes in regulatory environment of our online horseracing business; number of people wagering on live horse races; increase in competition in our online horseracing; uncertainty and changes in the legal landscape relating to our online wagering business; continued legalization of online sports betting and iGaming in the United States and our ability to predict and capitalize on any such legalization; inability to expand our sports betting operations and effectively compete; failure to manage risks associated with sports betting; failure to comply with laws requiring us to block access to certain individuals could result in penalties or impairment with respect to our mobile and online wagering products; increased competition in our casino business; changes in regulatory environment of our casino business; and concentration and evolution of slot machine manufacturing and other technology conditions that could impose additional costs; and inability to collect gaming receivables from the customers to whom we extend credit.
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