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I just re-tweeted this, but figured I’d put some extra info here too (by the way, feel free to follow us, if you’re not already).

Evening family meals just got longer thanks to the Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation.

The Arizona Diamondbacks awarded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul with one of three Grand Slam Awards. That means the society’s Family Evening Meal program gets a $100,000 boost.

Offering more than just food, families also get connected when other social resources while they’re there and the children get to role play, read and relax after dinner.

Steve Zabiliski, executive director of SVdP, said:

We can now expand the hours of our Family Evening Meal-Grand Slam program and help hundreds more families in need.

The families will likely appreciate that. The family dining room is currently open 5-6 p.m. It’s one of five dining rooms in the metro area. The kitchen, adjacent to the family dining room, provides hot meals to another 17 nonprofits according to SVdP’s blog.

“If it were not for St. Vincent de Paul, most of these families would go without eating. As we face our worst economy in years, we have more mouths to feed than ever, and this wonderful community icon allows us to achieve such a challenging, yet vital mission,” Derrick Hall, the Diamondbacks president and CEO said in the news release.

Professional sports teams getting involved with St. Vincent de Paul is not uncommon. Miami Heat’s Dwayne Wade shared his family’s struggles with homelessness growing up with St. Vincent de Paul clients about a year ago.

Phoenix Suns’ Leandro Barbosa teamed up with Feed the Children to provide food and personal care items to children and families late last year.