We’re the Kickball for a Cause 2025 Beneficiary and Why This Matters Beyond Just Epic Kickball Showdowns!

We had a great time getting to sit down and chat with Josiah Gilliam the Executive Director of PUMP,  which is a membership organization that has been serving the Pittsburgh region’s young people for more than 20 years. Their mission is to make Pittsburgh the most dynamic and diverse place by engaging, educating, and mobilizing all young people to create change in our community. RentHelpPGH is honored, hyped, and honestly still a little stunned to be selected as the 2025 beneficiary for PUMP’s Kickball for a Cause tournament happening this Saturday, August 9th at Mellon Park. This isn’t just a fun day of grown adults reliving their gym class glory (or trauma). This is a major community fundraiser that directly supports PUMP, as well as our work of fighting evictions, homelessness, and housing injustice in Allegheny County. And thanks to all of you who voted for us. we’ll be able to help even more neighbors stay housed, stay hopeful, and stay rooted in their communities.   

So, Why Does This Matters?

 Let’s keep it real for a second....in Allegheny County alone: 

 • About 14,000 evictions are filed every year. 

 • An estimated 1,000+ people experience homelessness on any given night. 

 • Rent is rising, wages aren’t keeping up, and one missed paycheck or medical emergency can  spiral into a full-blown housing crisis. 

These aren’t just numbers. These are our people! Our families, our seniors, our students, our workers, getting priced out, locked out, and pushed out. That’s exactly why RentHelpPGH exists. We’re a small but mighty nonprofit dedicated to: 

 • Trying to prevent evictions before they happen 

 • With the wonderful collaboration with attorneys from Neighborhood Legal Services, our court Resource Navigators can make referrals  free legal support, mediation, and court navigation 

 • Connecting tenants with rental assistance, resources, and hope We believe housing is a human right—and no one should be forced to navigate this mess alone.  

So… Why Kickball? 

Because community care doesn’t have to be boring. Because joy IS resistance! And because, frankly, we needed an excuse to wear matching shirts and legally yell, scream, and hysterically laugh in a park lol!! Kickball for a Cause is more than a fundraiser. It’s a celebration of what Pittsburgh does best: showing up for one another with heart, hustle, and of course humor. By choosing RentHelpPGH this year, PUMP is investing in the vision of a Pittsburgh where every neighbor has a safe, stable place to call home. 

How You Can Help If You Missed (wink! wink!) Registering For A Kickball Team?

No worries! You can still do the following:

 1. Donate: renthelppgh.org/donate 

 2. Show up August 9th at Mellon Park and cheer us on! Bonus points if you come by our booth, say Hi and take a pic with us! 

 3. Share this blog and tell your people: Housing Justice Is Community Justice!!  

I mean your kickball team could win bragging rights at the end of the day. However, your donation is a sure thing…(unlike that home run you’ve been bragging about for the last week). It will go towards the work we do in eviction prevention and mediation support that helps in keeping tenets from being unhoused. We do all of this while also being mindful the person is undoubtedly going through a crisis and needs our support done with the utmost kindness, patience, dignity, and non-judgment which is our specialty.

On the left RentHelp Managers: Evie Damon, Mairead McCarthy, and Tiffany Clayton. Center: PUMP Executive Director Josiah Gilliam, and on the right RentHelp Executive Director Abby Rae LaCombe. RentHelp staff engages in a heartfelt conversation discussing their work fighting housing instability as well as their gratitude for being chosen as this year's beneficiary of the Kickball For A Cause Tournament,

Gratitude Doesn’t Even Cover It!! 

We are beyond grateful to PUMP for choosing us, and to everyone who voted, shouted us out, or manifested this win with their ancestors. (We know some of y’all did.) This honor gives us the fuel to keep going and the platform to amplify the crisis and the solutions. Pittsburgh deserves better than another record year of evictions.

We deserve housing justice.

We deserve joy.

And yes… Yinz deserve kickball!!!