By Grace Silipigni
3601 Shore Drive, Virginia Beach. 757-412-1056. JAndARacing.com
Founded: 2003
Number of Employees: 13
What They Do: Each year, J&A Racing hosts seven charity-driven races throughout Coastal Virginia. The races help to promotes J&A’s mission of health and wellness and to encourage people of all ages to positively impact our community.
How They Help: Whether they’re sifting through volunteer applications, raising money for the local Boys & Girls Club or donating blood, the employees at J&A Racing are charity rockstars. Not only do they complete the assignments delegated to them, but they also design projects of their own that benefit local nonprofits of their choosing.
J&A’s mission is centralized on health and charity. Outside of the seven annual races J&A organizes with nonprofit partners are a host of volunteer opportunities through the J&A Racing Foundation. Established in 2014, the J&A Racing Foundation allocates hundreds of thousands of dollars to local and national charities that emphasize youth education, health and wellbeing. Some of the foundation’s most recognizable affiliations include Operation Smile, Roc Solid, Lynnhaven River Now, We Promise Foundation, Old Dominion Athletic Fund and Spike’s K9 Fund.
One of J&A’s greatest accomplishments took place earlier this year at the 2018 Operation Smile Final Mile. Through the foundation, J&A provided free race entries to 11 Title I schools along with round-trip transportation and 50 free pairs of running shoes to two of those schools.
Above all, the J&A team is proud to serve. “While the concept of investing in the community is not new, J&A Racing makes giving back a priority,” says Amanda Kowaleski, public relations and communications manager at J&A Racing. “Coastal Virginia is a part of J&A Racing’s identity, and we are proud of our area. We want our participants to see just how special our home is, and we want to be a part of what makes it so great. That means we not only want to provide a world-class race weekend experience for everyone, but we also want to show off the places and people we think make Coastal Virginia unique.”
To our company, community impact looks like: doing good as we encourage people in the area to do something good for themselves.
