Rip City 3-on-3 Features New Format, Same Community Spirit and Fun

Les Schwab Tire Centers is once again sponsoring Portland’s premier amateur hoops event, the Rip City 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament. The tournament, which benefits Special Olympics Oregon, will be held in the city’s Rose Quarter on July 30 and 31.

After a two-year hiatus, the popular event returned in 2014 with a roster that included roughly 1,300 participants on 325 teams. Building on that success, last year’s tournament grew to roughly 1,500 players on 389 teams, all with their eyes fixed on taking home a Division title.

For players, competitive divisions include youth (both boys and girls), high school (both boys and girls), adult (men, women and mixed teams), elite (men and women), the Special Olympics division and the Unified Sports division. All ages play on a standard 10-foot hoop.

This year, a brand-new format will begin with pool play on Saturday morning and culminate in single-elimination playoffs on Sunday. Pool play results will dictate playoff seeding, and every team is guaranteed a minimum of three games over the two days.

Thanks to the more than 300 volunteers who give 4,000 hours of their time each year, the event has managed to raise more than $50,000 for Special Olympics Oregon to date.

If you’re interested in getting involved, either as a player or volunteer, please visit the official tournament website to register. You can also “like” the Facebook event page, or follow @RipCity3on3 on Twitter and Instagram for more information. All volunteers will receive a Rip City 3-on-3 volunteer T-shirt.

Les Schwab has been a proud partner of the Rip City 3-on-3 Tournament since 2014 and are proud to be the presenting partner this year.

RESPECT Program Pays Surprise Visit to Wilson High

In 2013, rookie guard Damian Lillard, along with the Portland Trail Blazers and Les Schwab Tire Centers, tipped off a regional anti-bullying campaign that encourages everyone to stand up for the rights of others and to show respect for all people.

The RESPECT campaign began with a series of 30-second television and radio public service announcements featuring Lillard. The first showed more than 20 local youth from the Portland mentoring nonprofit Friends of the Children reciting the respect pledge and encouraging everyone to join by signing the “Respect, Pass it On” manifesto.

The PSAs directed viewers to the website nba.com/blazers/respect, where they could take the pledge digitally by using their Facebook account, or by printing and signing a paper copy of it. The campaign succeeded right out of the gate: It registered 1,800 pledges in the first 24 hours, and to date over 6,500 people from Portland, Oregon, and surrounding areas have committed to the pledge.

Lillard has been a Special Olympics Ambassador since he was 17. And he helped coach the Special Olympics Unified Sports Game during the 2013 NBA All-Star Weekend in Houston, Texas. In an interview with the Deseret News in 2014, he discussed how close to his heart the campaign is.

“I’ve seen too many of the negative effects that bullying has on people, especially kids,” Lillard said. “Now that I’ve learned how many people look up to us as NBA players, I want to make the most of it by getting behind positive initiatives like anti-bullying.”

In the second year of the pledge, students submitted stories of how they were showing respect, and the Trail Blazers selected three of them to feature in the next PSA.

Every year, Damian visits a Portland area high school to discuss why respect is important and reward schools and organizations that are leading the respect movement. This year, the RESPECT program surprised Wilson High School Special Olympics Unified Sports participants and Playworks Junior Coaches with a visit from the BlazerDancers and Stunt Team as well as tickets to an upcoming game.

Les Schwab is pleased to partner with Damian Lillard and the Trail Blazers to raise awareness about bullying in schools. Showing respect to everyone is important to creating thriving communities. Our employees have taken the RESPECT pledge, and we encourage others to join the campaign.

Big Wheels Plus Little Kids Equal Lots of Fun

For the past eight years, children of all ages in Southwest Washington have had a good reason to look forward to the third weekend in May, because that’s when — rain or shine — they get to go to Dozer Day.

Dozer Day is an annual, weekend-long fundraising event where the rides are heavy construction equipment. Kids get the real-world construction experience by hopping in the cab — with a professional operator at their sides — and drive bulldozers, excavators and other machines. About 20,000 guests attend Dozer Day every year.

Les Schwab Tire Centers has been a proud sponsor of the event for several years. The organization behind Dozer Day, the Nutter Family Foundation, shares Les Schwab’s values: giving children opportunities to grow and develop their talents, and the importance of community.

“Whenever we need anything, Les Schwab is there,” said Renee Nutter, the event organizer of the Nutter Family Foundation. “Like us, their basic attitude is, ‘We’re going to knock it out of the park for them.’”

Les Schwab’s signature contribution is the Tire Crawl, a large sandbox filled sand in which several giant tires — the kind Les Schwab sells for tractors, earth movers and log loaders — are stacked up 5-feet high to give kids a place to climb while they wait their turn to drive one of the big trucks.

“The kids have a blast, and it gives me a good feeling to watch them,” said Brien Rose, manager of the Woodland store. “Plus I get to hear their parents’ Les Schwab stories, whether it’s about just enjoying the free popcorn in the store or appreciating the donations and fundraisers we contribute to.”

Les Schwab also hosted the pre-event Friday for disadvantaged or disabled children. This year, several hundred kids came from the Evergreen School District to explore the Tire Crawl and had their yellow construction helmets decorated with a Les Schwab sticker.

Like Les Schwab, the community does its part to make the weekend special for the kids. Members of the Southwest Washington Contractors Association volunteer as operators. Teens, ages 14 to 18, recruited from the key clubs and honor societies in local high schools, make up the other half of volunteers. They do everything from escorting the younger kids to and from the equipment to checking in with guests to make sure they’re having a good time.

The Nutter Family Foundation teams up with individuals and local businesses that also share a passion for fostering kids’ growth. For example, members of Portland YouthBuilders volunteer at the event. The nonprofit organization helps provide education, vocational training and leadership development service to low-income youth, is also a recipient of the foundation’s grants.

Renee’s goal when she started Dozer Day was to raise $1 million in 10 years, and according to Nutter, it looks like she’ll exceed that goal a year early, but the kids will always be her primary focus.

“I remember in the first year, a little boy was crying his eyes out, so I checked in with his parents to see if he’d been hurt or if someone was picking on him,” Renee said. “‘No,’ his parents told me. ‘He’s just mad because we have to leave.’”

Lucky for us, Dozer Day will be back next May, with another opportunity to put children in the driver’s seat of heavy construction equipment, get to pitch in to help their neighbors and to have fun.