(July 4, 2016) As he closes in on his 100th world powerlifting record, World’s Strongest Violinist Evan Pittman is kicking his “Lift for Heroes” campaign into high gear, expanding his fundraising efforts to corporations across Arizona.
Begun last year, Evan’s effort to raise money for combat-wounded vets surpassed its initial goal of $2000, and now the seventeen-year-old Phoenix, Arizona high school student has increased the goal to $5000. He hopes to get help from some of Arizona’s biggest companies and charities to reach it.
“Today is the Fourth of July, our Independence Day,” Evan said, several hours after performing a lunchtime violin concert for residents at the Morningstar Senior Assisted Living Facility in Central Phoenix. “I’m personally writing to some of the biggest Arizona companies and requesting they support “Lift for Heroes”… We’ve raised our goal to at least $5000, but I’d love to be able to get more than that for our combat wounded troops. Thus far, family and friends have contributed to the campaign, and I really appreciate that, but I hope through these letters we can get some of Arizona’s corporate citizens involved in raising money for our injured service members as well.”
Evan devised and launched the Lift for Heroes campaign in October 2015 in conjunction with the Bob Woodruff Foundation to raise money for combat-injured veterans. His concept was to gather financial donations to help motivate him during his quest to become the youngest powerlifter in history to reach 100 world powerlifting records in competition. Evan is training in hopes of reaching that prodigious milestone at the end of July at the AAU Junior Olympic Games in Houston, however, the rising high school senior says he won’t stop raising money when he gets to 100.
“This is about the troops, and every penny we can raise for them counts,” he said. My intent is to run the program until we get the corporate support we need to make a difference in peoples’ lives.”
Donating to the Lift for Heroes campaign ( https://www.classy.org/liftforheroes ) is as easy as going to the website and pledging a donation online.