This past Thursday, November 20, it was the annual Dr. Theodore A. Atlas Foundation’s “Teddy Dinner” at the Hilton Garden Inn on Staten Island, New York.
The dinner, an annual celebration that brings celebrities from all walks of sports and entertainment, is a fundraiser and night of celebration for the foundation Atlas started in honour of his late father, a legendary doctor on Staten Island.
The dinner, which is a must-attend event for many in the sports and entertainment world in the New York area, has drawn huge stars over the years. This year’s event was no different with the likes of actor Tony Danza, comedian Tracy Morgan, and world champion boxers Michael Moorer, Iran Barkley, Vito Antuofermo, and others, to name just a few.
Atlas, always humble and appreciative, said, “l’d like to thank the people of Staten Island and from across the country and explain to them how important they have been to us as we now enter these late ‘rounds’ of this fight.”
Atlas, never far from a good boxing analogy, compared the foundation’s work to a ‘fight’.
“The people they help are often battling for their lives”, he said. “Whether it be the young boy who was diagnosed with a rare brain disease that the foundation purchased a van for, or the 10-year-old girl that travels from Florida to New York for her cancer treatments, or the mother and her children who were impacted by domestic violence and were sleeping on the floor.”
Boxing Hall of Fame member Atlas made a name for himself training and working the corners of some of the best fighters in the world. As well, he was a much-respected ringside analyst on ESPN for decades.
But it may be the work he does through the foundation, in honour of his father, that just might be his greatest legacy.
“So yes, it’s every bit as much a fight as Ali-Frazier was,” Atlas adds. “The big difference is that they are not fought out in glamorous or famous places such as Caesars Palace or MSG, and the bruises are often not as easy to see, as many of them are on the inside as well as the outside. All of the people we fight for need their own corner to pick them up from the stool and off the canvas to answer the next bell.”
The foundation works year-round to provide support to all vulnerable people through programs to support basketball, mental health, mentorship, food pantry and hampers, scholarships, anti-bullying, transportation, and many, many others.
This is an amazing foundation that does great work for the people of Staten Island and beyond.
As the foundation closes in on 3 decades of helping those who struggle to help themselves, what can people say except – Thank you, Teddy and the Theodore A. Atlas Foundation.
* If organizing a dinner for hundreds wasn’t enough work for the foundation, they were all up and back to work 2 days later, on Saturday morning, handing out 2000 full turkey dinner meals to the less fortunate.
These are good people doing good work! They cut out the red tape and get straight to support for the needy, through the foundation and an army of valued volunteers.
It doesn’t get much better than that!