EDISON, NJ–The Edison Township Education Association will be hosting their fifth annual charity volleyball tournament on Wednesday, February 25 at 6pm at J.P. Stevens High School, located at 855 Grove Avenue.

Tickets are available at the door and the proceeds go towards five charities chosen by the teachers’ union.  There will be one team for each school in the district and a team for administration.

Association president Jeff Bowden told Edison Now they are hoping to raise at least $10,000 for the five charities, who will each receive 20% of the revenue.

The five charities are: Kiddie Keep Well Camp, Buddy Ball of Edison, Breaking the Chain Through Education, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Veterans Home at Menlo Park.

Kiddie Keep Well Camp, founded in 1924 and located at Roosevelt Park, is a charity that provides a summer camp experience for unprivileged children whose families would not normally be able to afford sending their children to a summer camp. The camp hosts 150 kids at a time, ages 7-15, for 11 day sessions. The camp runs 4 sessions a summer, serving 600 of the almost 1000 applicants annually. The children attend at no cost to the families.

Buddy Ball of Edison is a charity that provides sports opportunities for adults and children with disabilities. They play baseball in the spring, bowling in the summer, soccer in the fall and basketball in winter. Buddy Ball is a national network with local chapters throughout the country.

Breaking the Chain Through Education is a charity that seeks to end child slavery in Ghana. The founder and CEO is Metuchen Education Association President Evan Robbins. Their mission is to establish schools in villages, raise awareness of child trafficking, rescue trafficked children and provide other services.

The Menlo Park Home for Veterans is a 312-bed nursing home for eligible veterans, retired reservists and National Guardsmen, their spouses and parents of children killed in action. It is operated by the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. Bowden remarked that the veteran’s home needs a new bus, and that the money raised would help with that expense.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, located in Manhattan, is known world-wide for their cancer research and treatment.

The event previously benefited Sloan Kettering solely, however as the fundraiser has been a huge success in prior years, the decision was made to include local charities.

At the February 23 Board of Education meeting, Bowden thanked the board for providing the use of the high school to hold the event.