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Joshua Harris Donates Biggest Gift Ever to Philadelphia PAL
By Jim Adair
Published:
For all Joshua Harris and his ownership partners have done for the Sixers – and depending on whom you ask that’s either a lot or nothing at all – there hasn’t been much word of them helping Philadelphia outside of cheap tickets on the secondary market. Sure, they run basketball camps and donate food and all of that standard stuff, as basketball teams do, but they’re building their practice facility in Camden, and some people can’t get it out of their head that they’ll just dump the team to the highest bidder as soon as they can. Maybe part of the reason that thought remains prevalent is that they still don’t feel Philadelphia. Harris does all this stuff, but it’s almost like he needs some kind of big donation to a local non-profit to really embrace the Philadelphia-ness of it all. That’s probably not how he saw it, but he wrote a big check anyway.
Harris will reportedly donate $3.5 million to the Philadelphia Police Athletic League, or PAL, the biggest gift in the organization’s history. According to the Inquirer, “the donation is being made through a family foundation affiliated with Harris.” And it’s a huge deal. The 2013 revenue for PAL was only $2.2 million. So Harris’ donation is “Name One After Me” kind of money. Maybe they can switch my old neighborhood PAL, the Rizzo PAL, to the Harris PAL. That’d be cool. I’d love to be a billionaire’s PAL.
When he's not writing about sports here or ranting about them on Twitter, Jim is probably watching X-Files on Netflix or drinking a beer somewhere. Jim has nothing against hockey, it's just not his style. He once met Duce Staley at a Sixers game.