{"id":212518,"date":"2025-09-09T09:58:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/212518\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T09:58:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:58:12","slug":"charles-making-impact-off-the-court-with-her-nonprofit-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/212518\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles making impact off the court with her nonprofit foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before the start of the 2013 season, Charles lost her aunt, Maureen \u201cHopey\u201d Vaz<\/b>, to multiple organ failure. Shortly after, she started her nonprofit Hopey\u2019s Heart Foundation and made heart health her mission with the goal of increasing accessibility to automated external defibrillators.<\/p>\n

Within a year, her foundation raised enough money to put more than 100 AEDs in schools across the country. Her commitment never wavered. Her career took her from Connecticut to New York, Washington, Phoenix, Seattle, and Atlanta and at every stop she committed to donating at least half her salary to Hopey\u2019s Heart. By 2022, the number of AEDs provided by the foundation grew to 400.<\/p>\n

She returned to the Sun this season, and it felt fitting that in a year full of milestones \u2014 including climbing to No. 1 all time in made field goals \u2014 the biggest came Saturday in the form of a $20,000 donation from Yale New Haven Health that will raise the total number of Hopeys Heart\u2019s AEDs to more than 500.<\/p>\n

Charles accepted the pledge on the court at Mohegan Sun Arena before the Sun\u2019s 87-84 win over the Phoenix Mercury with family on hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first AED placed was in a Connecticut Sun uniform,\u201d Charles said. \u201cGetting to 500 is in a Connecticut Sun uniform. So it\u2019s just really good in a sense of how it all unfolded full-circle. A lot of amazing things have happened for me, for my nonprofit and other endeavors in a Connecticut Sun uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yale New Haven Health\u2019s pledge represents 15 to 20 AEDs. The hospital also plans to work with the American Heart Association to offer heart health education where the AEDs are placed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re an AAU basketball team, you might be playing in a game that does not actually have the capabilities of that AED, so we understand that even though it\u2019s not mandatory, it still needs to be available and there,\u201d said Paul Mounds Jr.<\/b>, vice president of community, corporate and government relations for Yale New Haven Health. \u201cAnd that\u2019s one of the things that Tina Charles\u2019s foundation has been focusing on and that\u2019s the reason why we felt it was important to partner with her \u2014 to raise the awareness of the importance of AEDS, the importance of heart health and the importance of what you can do and should do when these types of heart conditions occur, which can be sudden and quick.\u201c<\/p>\n

Part of the reason Charles and the Sun reunited in the offseason was because of the example Charles could set for a young team. Averaging a team high 16.6 points while also being a veteran presence at 36 years old, Charles has lived up to expectations on and off the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s just a great example of what professionalism means,\u201d said Sun president Jennifer Rizzotti<\/b><\/a>. \u201cShe shows up every day, does her job, practices, works hard. She shows up for games, she\u2019s our leading scorer at her age. She just gets it done. I think she\u2019s also learned through the year what her leadership can mean for our young team. It took her a little while to adjust to so many young players, but once she did, you see the impact it\u2019s had on the rest of our group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you add her off-the-court endeavors and the fact that she\u2019s showing the young players in this league what it really means to use your platform for good, to find something you care about that impacts you deeply and pour yourself into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sun attendance still strong<\/p>\n

The Sun\u2019s future might be uncertain, but its fanbase is unwavering. In the offseason, the Sun dismantled a team that was one win away from reaching the WNBA Finals a year ago. Then in the middle of the season, the Mohegan Tribe began exploring a sale \u2014 a complicated process that saw former Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca<\/b><\/a> <\/b>and former Bucks owner Marc Lasry<\/b> emerge as potential buyers before the league stepped in.<\/p>\n

But the Sun still drew average crowds of 8,707 to its 17 home games, the best attendance figures in franchise history in a year when league-wide attendance was also at an all-time high. Looking Saturday at a soldout crowd of 8,910, Rizzotti called the fanbase\u2019s loyalty \u201cremarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve been very intentional about making sure people understood our vision and tried to get them excited about this new, young rookie group that we have,\u201d Rizzotti said. \u201cBut I also think, in some ways, the uncertainty around the team\u2019s future galvanized the state a little bit to come out and show support for the team. Couple that with the overall excitement about the WNBA right now, and I think there\u2019s so many factors that go into that.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Sun announced earlier this year to season-ticket holders that they would return to Mohegan for the 2026 season. But that\u2019s as far as the organization would go while it weighed a sale and possible relocation, depending on the buyer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would tell them to show up and enjoy the opportunity they have to be a part of a WNBA franchise in their state,\u201d Rizzotti said. \u201cRegardless of what happens, we\u2019re here right now. So there\u2019s no excuse to not come out this year, no excuse to come out next year. Because if it moves, you\u2019re going to miss out on such a great experience. So I think it\u2019s just asking them to be present and asking them to be invested now and not worry so much about what\u2019s to come.\u201c<\/p>\n

Alyssa Thomas<\/b><\/a> is one of the most unique forces in the WNBA. Her elite passing and vision paired with unmatched strength and relentlessness getting to the basket pose a problem for any defender. Get out of the way, give up a layup, and live to guard another day or guard the basket, brace for contact, take a punishing hit and watch her go to the free-throw line. And guarding the basket at all means she has the option to spray a pass to the 3-point line.<\/p>\n

\"PhoenixPhoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas has a WNBA record eight triple-doubles this seasonRoss D. Franklin\/Associated Press<\/p>\n

Charles has had plenty of battles with Thomas over their careers. When she saw Thomas coming down in transition in the second quarter Saturday, she didn\u2019t flinch. She waited for Thomas to go to her Eurostep, tracked the basketball as Thomas swung it across her body, then swiped it from her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just making a read on that play,\u201d Charles said. \u201cShe brought the ball down and I just tried to strip it because knowing her, just her aggression, she\u2019s probably going to get fouled or use that as momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sun stunned the fourth-place Mercury Saturday but slowing down Thomas was almost impossible. She left Mohegan Sun Arena with 14 points, 10 assists, and eight rebounds, nearly adding another triple-double to the record seven she\u2019s already posted this season.<\/p>\n

For the third straight season, Thomas has flirted with averaging a triple-double, posting 15.8 points, 8.9 rebounds, and 9.2 assists per game. The pressure she puts on the rim gives a team full of shooters freedom to fire. The Mercury have made 392 3-pointers and Thomas has assisted on 170 of them.<\/p>\n

With the MVP race more wide open than it\u2019s been in recent years, Thomas has as much of a case as anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake about it, AT and I, we\u2019re very competitive,\u201d Charles said. \u201cShe\u2019s a hell of a player. What she\u2019s been able to do for organizations she\u2019s been on, making others better, being very selfless, very unselfish player, and averaging a triple-double, which we\u2019ve just never seen in our league. So I think sometimes we take for granted just how good she is night in and night out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julian Benbow can be reached at julian.benbow@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the start of the 2013 season, Charles lost her aunt, Maureen \u201cHopey\u201d Vaz, to multiple organ failure.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":212519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232,22795],"class_list":{"0":"post-212518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba","13":"tag-wnba-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}