The Jays Care Foundation, the charitable arm of the Toronto Blue Jays, has selected Angry Butterfly to assist in building awareness of its efforts to support children and youth facing barriers in communities across Canada.

The independent agency was selected following an RFI process, online discovery sessions and in-person strategic meetings. It has been tasked with helping to “align the organization around a singular, clear articulation of purpose,” as well as executing a national creative campaign built on the aforementioned alignment, according to Mark Khatter, group account director at Angry Butterfly.

“The Jays Care Foundation has so many fantastic programs, such as Girls at Bat, Challenger Baseball and the Indigenous Rookie league, to name a few. It is our mandate to help connect these programs from a consumer and donor perspective,” he tells strategy. “While the Blue Jays baseball team is known across Canada, their charitable arm isn’t. That’s even after working with thousands of children across hundreds of communities. Some of the programs are known to their communities, but many don’t realize that it’s Jays Care behind it.”

More than 46,000 Canadian children and youth across every province and territory participate in Jays Care programming. According to Robert Witchel, executive director of the Foundation, “the goal of this partnership is to shine a light on our efforts across the country to level the playing field for all children and youth.”

Much of the strategy will focus on sharing the “touching stories” that the agency has heard from participants who were positively impacted by Jays Care’s programming, according to Khatter. “Our goal is to help tell their story to a wider audience of sports fans, donors and Canadians at large.”

The win is the latest to be announced by the independent shop, which now counts 40 people among its employees after a recent hiring spree that was executed in response to new business.