Athletes Saving Athletes Sponsor: Cymer, Inc.

Advocates for Saving Athletes™ is the trademark program of Advocates for Injured Athletes.  This peer-to-peer education program has taught students all over San Diego how to recognize potentially life-threatening injuries in their teammates.  Most recently two ASA™ ambassadors have saved a life with the skills they learned.  It’s obvious the program has made an impact in San Diego.  This would not have been possible without the help of program sponsors such as San Diego-based company, Cymer.  Advocates for Injured Athletes would like to take time this week to thank Cymer for its support of the ASA™ program as it continues to grow.

Cymer is a San Diego technology company that employs over 1300 employees worldwide (approx. 800 in San Diego) with a very strong culture of supporting the local community.  Cymer has logged 2300 volunteer hours in the last year and employees can be seen giving back to the community on a regular basis.  Cymer supports 40 local events and 20 regional events annually including the San Diego Zoo Food & Wine Festival, UCSD Luau and Longboard Invitational (a cancer research fundraiser) and the San Diego Festival of Science and Engineering just to name a few.  Since 2005, Cymer has spent $6 million on a variety of projects and grants in the San Diego area.  Advocates for Injured Athletes has been a fortunate recipient of some of Cymer’s resources since 2011.

Cymer eagerly partnered with Advocates for Injured Athletes in 2011 because it was a “different spin” on the usual grant requests they receive.  The request wasn’t just about money to fund a one-time project.  Cymer realized supporting the ASA™ program meant supporting something that would have a long-term impact in the community because of its educational focus.  Knowledge is power and in the case of ASA™, knowing what to do could actually save lives.  It’s been exciting from Cymer’s perspective to see Advocates for Injured Athletes continue to grow and work to expand the program beyond San Diego.

Grant funding from Cymer has allowed Advocates for Injured Athletes to update all aspects of the ASA™ program including program audio, videos and handouts.  The primary promotional video, as well as many of the other video resources available on Advocates for Injured Athletes YouTube Channel were sponsored in part by Cymer.  Other videos in the works include A4IA’s hands-only CPR video.  Finally, the ASA™ program has been so successful here in San Diego that funding from Cymer will help the ASA™ program expand to other cities around the US.  This expansion means being able to find and train additional program instructors and educate more students, broadening the impact of A4IA and ASA™ into a national program. 

In the end, all non-profits depend on the donations and grants from the community to support their work.  It has been the privilege of Advocates for Injured Athletes to be supported by Cymer, a local corporation that has made a commitment to improving the community where they work and live.  Thank you for realizing the potential of Advocates for Injured Athletes and the ASA™ programs and we look forward to a continued relationship. 

Submitted by Heather L. Clemons, MS, MBA, ATC