Western Pa. native John Calipari has done charity work before, but this time it’s personal

Vincent Calipari was 55 years old when he got laid off from his job in Pittsburgh as a fueler for the airline industry.

“He went part-time for three years trying to build himself back,” John Calipari said Tuesday of his dad. “I know what my mother and father went through when that happened and as a family what that does.”

You see, Kentucky’s basketball coach has not spent his entire life earning millions of dollars, living in a nice home, flying on private jets, making the kind of money that can provide most anything he could want for himself and his family. Back in Moon Township, he saw what it was like for his father to be suddenly out of a job, just as so many are out of a job right now because of the coronavirus epidemic.

That’s why on a video conference call from his home with reporters Tuesday, Calipari said The Calipari Foundation, started by John and Ellen Calipari in 2012, would be teaming with Kroger and the Fayette County (Ky.) Schools to provide groceries for 400 families during the coronavirus crisis.

“This is going to be ongoing,” Calipari said. “For four weeks those 400 families will get groceries. And then if they need more, then we’ll do more. If it’s eight weeks or more, we’ll go that way. But for four weeks, we’re going to do this. And I’d like it to be 500 or 1,000 families if anyone wants to join us in this.”

He also said this: “And again, we’ve been blessed in so many ways. I’m not saying this in any other way than to say do what you can do.”

And as we all know, Calipari is no stranger to charity work. In 2010, he and his Kentucky players held a telethon that raised $1 million for earthquake victims in Haiti, an effort that earned a call of appreciation from President Obama. In 2017, the Cats held a telethon for flood victims in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. Calipari is very involved with Samaritan’s Feet. He helped raise money for federal workers during the government shutdown in 2019.

There are plenty of other things he’s done that only a small group of people know about, because he wants it that way.

The guess here is this cause is even more personal to him, however. That’s why Calipari bought $5,000 in gift cards from the Bluegrass Hospitality Group of restaurants. It’s why he and Ellen began ordering out twice a day from local restaurants whose dining rooms have been closed to meet the necessary government guidelines.

“But then I looked at her and she looked at me and said we’d better just do this once a day,” he said. “But we’re ordering out every day to make sure we’re helping in that way.”

And it doesn’t have to stop there.

“If you eat out and you get a certain server all the time,” Calipari said, “maybe find out from the manager that server’s address and maybe send them a little thing so they know, ‘Hey man, sorry you’re going through this.’ That’s a tough deal for a lot of families.”

So, yes, there was talk of basketball on Tuesday. About how many UK players might test the NBA Draft waters — Cal’s guess is four or five. About SEC Player of the Year Immanuel Quickley possibly returning to play point guard. About the proposed new transfer rule. About how his team might have fared in the now canceled NCAA Tournament.

Yet all that hoops talk pales in importance to what’s going on, the empathy for those who have contracted the coronavirus, the struggles for small businesses and their workers in tough economic times and the support for those on the medical front line who are involved in the crisis every minute of every day.

“We have to look at this as every day this goes on is one less day we’re going to be in it. Because it will end,” Calipari said. “None of us know when. But we have to listen to our leaders, what they’re telling each of us to do. And it will end at some point.”