Share 
Rivers Casino Philadelphia sent its team members out today for the fourth annual Rivers Gives Day of Service, and this year, the assignment is hunger.
More than 6,000 employees across Rush Street Gaming’s five Rivers Casino properties, plus the company’s Chicago headquarters, volunteered Tuesday with nonprofit partners in their home markets: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Des Plaines, Illinois, Schenectady, New York, and Portsmouth, Virginia. The company built this year’s event around food insecurity and team member wellness, a shift from last year’s focus on workforce development.
In Philadelphia, that meant Philabundance, which the company describes as one of the region’s largest food banks. Team members for the Pennsylvania retail casino worked at the Philabundance Community Kitchen, packing and sorting fresh meal kits, and wrote greeting cards for the group’s Notes of Sunshine Project, which lands in roughly 4,000 senior food boxes distributed every month.
A poker room food drive raises $10,000 for Philabundance
The casino’s poker room ran its own version of the drive starting Aug. 1, letting players trade $10 or five canned goods for extra tournament chips. That campaign wrapped today, too, and it pulled in more than $10,000 for Philabundance.
On top of a separate $10,000 donation from the casino itself.
Team members also got a wellness push alongside the volunteer shifts. Fran Lawn, a certified nutrition coach and personal trainer at Silver Fox Nutrition, ran one-on-one health consultations and a seminar on nutrition and fitness at the casino’s Event Center in Fishtown.
The fourth year of a Day of Service that keeps changing focus
Rush Street Gaming started the Day of Service in 2023, and, according to the company, team members have steered its focus every year since: military veterans and first responders, then health and wellness nonprofits, and last year, workforce development. Food insecurity is the target for 2026.
Tim Drehkoff, CEO of Rivers Casino and Rush Street Gaming, said:
Our communities are at the heart of everything we do, and Rivers Gives Day of Service allows our Team Members to put that commitment into action where we live and work. We’re proud to work alongside our nonprofit partners to help connect individuals and families in need with nutritious food, health resources and community support.
Rush Street Gaming says Rivers Gives, its year-round giving program, puts about $14 million a year into nonprofit partners and community groups across its markets, through volunteering, board service, donation drives, and corporate giving.
By the time the shifts wrapped on Tuesday, a poker room, a community kitchen, and a stack of handwritten cards had all worked the same assignment. Hunger.
“Our Team Members are the driving force behind Rivers Gives Day of Service, bringing their time and energy to causes that make a meaningful difference,” said Dawn Reynolds Pettit, chief human resources officer of Rush Street Gaming. “We’re proud to see our Team Members come together with nonprofit partners to give back while also taking part in opportunities that support their health and well-being.”
