Where J&J's Gives Back Around the Wyoming Valley

Jen Roberts has made it a standing goal that J&J’s gives back where it can, either as a cash donation or as memorabilia an organisation can use to raise its own money. Three names come up most.

Wyoming Valley Challenger Baseball League

Little League’s adaptive division for players with physical and intellectual disabilities. The Wyoming Valley league runs about 130 players across Districts 16 and 31 and reached the Little League World Series in 2025, a few seasons after a board meeting where the main agenda item was whether it could continue at all. The longer version is here.

Little Eric’s Foundation

Founded in 2014 by Eric and Jessica Speicher after their son died of brain cancer at 14. It funds pediatric cancer research and helps families who are in treatment now. Based in the Pittston area. More about it here.

Christopher Ryan Bone Memorial Golf Tournament

A tournament held in memory of Chris Bone, who died at 25 in an accident. His family runs it through the Christopher Ryan Bone Memorial Fund. It is the kind of event that exists because people who loved someone decided to make something useful out of losing him.

Why memorabilia rather than a cheque

For an organisation running a raffle or a silent auction, a signed item usually outperforms the equivalent cash donation. Two reasons.

A framed signed photograph draws people to the table. It gets photographed, it gets shared, and it pulls in bidders who came for something else. A cheque of the same value does none of that.

And the ceiling is higher. A hundred people buying raffle tickets for one good item can raise several times what the item is worth. That multiplier only works when the prize is something people actively want, which is why sports memorabilia does the job and a generic donated hamper does not.

Asking us

We are a small family business, so we cannot say yes to everything that comes in. What helps:

• Tell us the organisation and what the money is for
• Tell us the date, so we know whether there is time to get something signed
• Tell us the format, because a raffle prize and a silent auction lot are different asks
• Local to the Wyoming Valley moves to the front of the queue

Send it through here and we will give you a straight answer either way.