Racing for Charity – Porsche’s donation initiative in Le Mans
The Porsche Penske Motorsport works team fields three Porsche 963 decked out in a stunning livery at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 10/11 June. The designs pay tribute to historically significant motorsport colours and thus combine the anniversary celebrations of 75 years of Porsche sports cars and 100 years of the Le Mans 24 Hours. Moreover, the new hybrid prototypes will race for a good cause: for each race lap, Porsche will donate 750 euros in keeping with the 75th anniversary of Porsche sports cars. After the racing highlight at Le Mans, the total amount will go towards helping seriously ill children around the world.
Porsche sees itself as a responsible partner of society. With the newly launched initiative “Racing for Charity”, Porsche expands its extensive social commitment. After the 100th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the donated funds will be distributed among three organisations: Kinderherzen retten e.V., Interplast Germany e.V. and the Ferry Porsche Foundation. At the Le Mans 24 Hours, the top cars in the hypercar class will turn up to 380 laps on the 13.626-kilometre Circuit des 24 Heures. Under ideal circumstances, the three works cars fielded by Porsche Penske Motorsport could accrue a total of 1,140 laps.
“The 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the biggest sporting events in the world and the greatest challenge in endurance racing. For Porsche, Le Mans is one of the most demanding testing grounds for new technologies that will eventually flow into series production,” says Michael Steiner, Member of the Executive Board, Research and Development at Porsche AG. “On the occasion of the 100th anniversary at Le Mans, we want to convey a message and call attention to selected organisations that are particularly committed to social issues.”
The Kinderherzen retten e.V. is based in Freiburg, Germany. This association works closely with the local university clinic there. Kinderherzen retten e.V. helps children suffering from heart conditions in medically less developed countries to lead a healthy life with a one-off operation. For this operation, the children are brought to the Freiburg clinic in Germany. The highly specialised team of doctors has already assisted 260 children since the association was founded 21 years ago.
The medical professionals from Interplast Germany e.V. carry out plastic surgery on a voluntary basis and treat, among other things, injuries and burns in children from crisis regions and developing countries. The operations team members are experts who step in when highly specialised help is urgently needed but not yet available. With one mission, up to 100 children and young people can undergo operations in their respective countries. Interplast France, based in Le Mans, will also receive support for one mission through the “Racing for Charity” initiative.
The Ferry Porsche Foundation was established in May 2018 to mark the 70th anniversary of the Porsche brand. Thanks to donations from “Racing for Charity”, some of the load on seriously ill children and their families will be lifted so that they can enjoy some lighter moments.
Social responsibility is an integral part of Porsche’s corporate culture. People take priority. Porsche is involved in numerous charitable initiatives and concentrates on sustainable projects in five core areas of sport, culture, environment, and social issues as well as education and science. In this way, more than 150 sponsorship projects were supported around the world in 2022. As a result, Porsche helps shape the future of society – and aims to set benchmarks here too.