WELLESLEY, Mass. and BOSTON, Dec. 5, 2022
/PRNewswire/ -- Sun Life and the Boston Celtics are closing out
another year of #SunLifeDunk4Diabetes with a $155,000 donation to the YMCA of Greater Boston's Healthy Habits program. Every
November, which is Diabetes Awareness Month, Sun Life donates
$1,000 for each Celtics dunk, matched
by the Celtics Shamrock Foundation up to $25,000. Through weekly polls on Twitter, fans
vote on their favorite dunk of the week, culminating with a final
Twitter vote for 'Dunk of the Month.' Each Twitter vote generates a
$1 donation, while 'Dunk of the
Month' votes generate $5. This year,
the honor went to Jayson Tatum from
the November 2 game against
Cleveland.
Tatum led the team's whopping 60 dunks in November with 17 of
his own, while Luke Kornet got 16.
With 60 dunks and 6,898 Twitter votes throughout the month,
#SunLifeDunk4Diabetes raised $105,000
for the Y. Sun Life is also providing an additional $50,000 development grant to support the Y's
efforts to expand the Healthy Habits program to children. Healthy
Habits teaches lifestyle and nutrition habits, helping participants
avoid a type 2 diabetes diagnosis and live healthier lives.
"We are thrilled to continue supporting the YMCA of Greater Boston's Healthy Habits program,
including providing additional resources to help the Y expand the
program to children," said Neil
Haynes, senior vice president and CFO of Sun Life U.S., and
board member of the YMCA of Greater
Boston. "The Y knows how important it is to teach these
lifestyle habits young, and we're lucky to have a partner like the
Boston Celtics, who inspire so many young fans around New England
and set an example for health, fitness, and discipline."
At Friday night's game against the Heat, representatives from
the Celtics organization, Sun Life, and the YMCA of Greater Boston met at center court during
half-time to present the Y with the giant check.
"Through this campaign, we are able to showcase the value of
creating habits to sustain a healthy lifestyle," said Ted Dalton, Boston Celtics chief partnership
officer. "We love teaming up with Sun Life and the YMCA of
Greater Boston each year to raise
awareness and funding for an important cause."
The YMCA of Greater Boston's
Healthy Habits program is a 10-week intensive course for adults at
risk for or living with diabetes. The program provides participants
with the tools and support they need to establish and maintain the
foundational habits for living a healthy lifestyle. With Sun Life's
support, the YMCA will be embarking on a development process with
the goal of expanding the program to reach children. This builds on
Sun Life's and the Celtics' youth fitness program with the YMCA of
Greater Boston, called Fit to Win.
This program engages third through sixth graders, challenging them
with workouts and healthy lifestyle habits, and having them track
their results over a 4-week period. The 9th annual Fit
to Win program will begin in early 2023.
"We are so fortunate to have wonderful partners like Sun Life
and the Celtics, two organizations working to help improve health
and wellness in the Greater Boston
community," said David Shapiro,
president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater
Boston. "Continuing and broadening our Healthy Habits
program ensures more people, especially children, have the
opportunity to learn life skills that will help them stay healthy
and active."
Since the beginning of #SunLifeDunk4Diabetes, Sun Life and the
Celtics have raised more than $800,000 for the YMCA of Greater Boston's diabetes education
programming. Globally, Sun Life has donated more than $34 million to support diabetes causes, and has
given over $3.8 million in the
U.S.
About Sun Life
Sun Life is a leading international
financial services organization providing asset management, wealth,
insurance and health solutions to individual and institutional
Clients. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide,
including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong
Kong, the Philippines,
Japan, Indonesia, India, China,
Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda. As of September 30, 2022, Sun Life had total assets
under management of C$1.27 trillion.
For more information, please visit www.sunlife.com.
Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New
York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the
ticker symbol SLF.
In the United States, Sun Life
is one of the largest group benefits providers, serving more than
55,000 employers in small, medium and large workplaces across the
country. Sun Life's broad portfolio of insurance products and
services in the U.S. includes disability, absence management, life,
dental, vision, voluntary and medical stop-loss. Sun Life and its
affiliates in asset management businesses in the U.S. employ
approximately 8,000 people. Group insurance policies are issued by
Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (Wellesley
Hills, Mass.), except in New
York, where policies are issued by Sun Life and Health
Insurance Company (U.S.) (Lansing,
Mich.). For more information, please visit
www.sunlife.com/us.
Media contacts:
Devon
Fernald
Sun Life U.S.
781-800-3609
Devon.Portney.Fernald@sunlife.com
Connect with Sun Life U.S.
https://www.facebook.com/SLFUnitedStates
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sun-life-financial
https://twitter.com/SunLifeUS
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SOURCE Sun Life U.S.