Throughout 2025, Empire City Casino by MGM Resorts showed its continued dedication to supporting residents of the Bronx and Westchester via ongoing employee volunteer efforts, in-kind giving and strategic partnerships with local nonprofits, with all these initiatives backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from the MGM Resorts Foundation and Empire City Casino.
Empire City placed a particular focus on strengthening the community by concentrating mainly on supporting programs that address food insecurity, expand access to nutritious meals, support public education that fosters academic success and fund workforce development initiatives that offer training and resources to prepare individuals for sustainable career opportunities.
Numerous charitable organizations across Yonkers, Mount Vernon and the Bronx were supported by Empire City last year. Support ranged from grant funding to sponsorships to volunteer hours.
“Delivering meaningful social impact that strengthens our communities is in the DNA of Empire City’s mission, both in New York and across MGM Resorts globally,” Empire City Casino by MGM Resorts President and Chief Operating Officer Louis Theros said.
“As colleagues, neighbors and friends, our commitment has only grown stronger as our team goes over and beyond to support their neighbors. We look forward to continuing our work as stewards of community transformation in the Bronx and Westchester for generations to come.”
Empire City helped address food insecurity in the area by providing grants to Feeding Westchester to assist in the delivery of more than 20,000 meals to seniors and families in need. Additionally, the grants also supported Feeding Westchester’s Retail Recovery program, which rescues food that would have otherwise gone to waste.
The Retail Recovery program provides food for tens of thousands of people each month. Feeding Westchester’s Kids in the Kitchen program also benefited from the grants from Empire City. This program provides kids and their families with valuable nutritional education. Grants were also given to Catholic Charities Community Services Archdiocese of New York to provide nearly 9,000 meals to low-income families and seniors in Yonkers and the Bronx.
On the topic of public education, Empire City provided grant funding to the Boys and Girls Club of Mount Vernon to support its Project Learn program, which is meant to help high school seniors graduate. Support was also given to the Hudson River Museum of Westchester’s year-round teen leadership program, which engages students at Yonkers High School with free STEAM education, college readiness and mentorship opportunities.
Additionally, funding has been given to Groundwork Hudson Valley to support its sustainability education programs and to the Morris Heights Health Center to support its health literacy education programs.
Workforce development programs that received grant funding from Empire City in 2025 included Visiting Nurse Services, Westhab, Yonkers Partners in Education and Visions Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired. A grant to fund a no-cost home health aide training program was given to Visiting Nurse Services.
Westhab was provided with grants supporting no-cost certification training in the security, construction and building maintenance industries. The College Ready and Career Bound program at Partners in Education was given support in helping students transition from high school to college and into careers. The financial support provided to Visions Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired was used to provide the visually impaired with technology training and workforce certification support.
Thousands of volunteer hours have been provided by employees at Empire City to a wide range of local charitable causes in 2025. Employees helped sort produce at Feeding Westchester’s food distribution centers throughout the year, partnered with the New York Blood Center to host a blood drive to address critical blood shortages, assembled hundreds of summer reading and activity kits for local students through United Way of Westchester and Putnam, planted with Pre-K students at Queen’s Daughter Daycare, distributed food to community residents in need through Catholic Charities, Feeding Westchester and Part of the Solution and volunteered on the 9/11 Day of Service with Volunteer New York.
Strategic sponsorships were given to local partners in order to advance the missions of these organizations. Empire City’s sponsorships in 2025 included the after-school care programs and summer camps run by the Youth Outreach Program of Mount Vernon, the Bronx Chamber Foundation scholarships for college-bound high school seniors, the Food Bank for New York City’s pop-up food pantry in the Bronx that provided hundreds of families with fresh food,
Yonkers Community Action Program’s holiday food pantry and public education programs through United Way of Westchester and Putnum, ArtsWestchester and Untermyer Performing Arts Council.
