Denver-based Kroenke Sports Enterprises LLC has become such a good corporate citizen, it recently won the local 2003 National Philanthropy Day Award for Outstanding Large Business or Corporation. The company was honored largely for the educational and athletic help it provides children.

Focusing its efforts on kids, Kroenke Sports believes the goal of its philanthropy should be not only to succeed, but to be significant, according to Deb Dowling Canino, Kroenke Sports' vice president of community relations.

Kids and sports are inexorably entwined, said Don Elliman, president of Kroenke Sports.

"We focus on children's health, which is more than just wellness. It's also fitness; fitness is a major concern for kids in this country," Elliman said.

Elliman sits on the boards of the Children's Hospital Foundation as well as Boys and Girls Clubs of Denver.

"I spend 30 or 40 percent of my time on a specific charity," Elliman said. "I went to Stan and told him I wanted to do that, and he said that's the right thing to do. It's also the right thing for a company to do, if it has the resources."

Education also plays a major role in the company's community involvement.

The Stanley Cup-winning Avalanche pro hockey team has given $7 million to local children's charities through its Colorado Avalanche Community Fund, since the Quebec Nordiques became the Avs in 1995. The Avs' Team Fit program promotes physical fitness for kids in kindergarten through fifth grade. Players teach disadvantaged children how to skate through the Break the Ice program.

The Avs also sponsor an environmental awareness program called EcoAvs, nutrition counseling through Eat Right! and the Read Team literacy effort.

Pro basketball's Nuggets have given more than $20 million to children's causes since 1992, when the squad's Denver Nuggets Community Fund was set up. Through the YMCA/Junior Nuggets Basketball League, kids ages 3 through 17 learn basketball and teamwork.

Like the Avs, the Nuggets are also involved in Team Fit, Eat Right! and the Art of Sport creativity program.

Together, the Avs and Nuggets, along with the McCormick Tribune Foundation, have contributed $1 million to Denver Public Schools' Prep League. The league creates basketball, hockey, soccer, flag football and baseball teams for 3,000 students a year at DPS middle schools. Before the league, the school district hadn't offered organized sports at the middle school level in 30 years.

The Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer, which Kroenke Sports just bought from Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz for an undisclosed sum, also has its own child-oriented community outreach efforts.

Civic-minded companies donate Rapids home game tickets to needy kids through Kick for Kids, for example. The team has even sent soccer balls to Iraq.

Kroenke Sports has forged a close relationship with the Gold Crown Foundation, which helps 22,000 Denver-area children learn life skills through sports.

The Kroenke company is a major backer of Gold Crown's new 60,000-square-foot, $6.5 million fieldhouse to be built next to the Coca-Cola All Star Park in Lakewood.

Ray Baker, the Gold Crown Foundation's co-founder and director, said, "They made a 10-year commitment to be involved with us. ... As Stan has often said, he's not here for the short term."

Baker expects the company to maintain a relationship with his organization even beyond that time frame.

"Athletics is important to Stan," Baker said. "It took no convincing to get him involved with us."

Kroenke Sports came to Denver in 2000, after Stan Kroenke and his wife, Wal-Mart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke, bought the Avs, Nuggets and Pepsi Center arena from now-defunct Ascent Entertainment for $404 million.

The Kroenkes live in Columbia, Mo., near St. Louis.

Kroenke Sports also owns the Colorado Mammoth pro lacrosse team, and has interests in the Colorado Crush arena football team and Grand Prix of Denver auto race. Stan Kroenke is a minority owner of the St. Louis Rams National Football League team, winner of the 2000 Super Bowl.

© 2003 American City Business Journals Inc.