Harley-Davidson’s charitable giving topped $4.5 million in 2012, highlighted by a $200,000 grant to Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity for its Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative focused on the Washington Park area. The grant will help fund neighborhood improvements through an expanded array of housing projects.

“Our mission at The Harley-Davidson Foundation is to help meet the needs of the communities where we work,” said Tonit Calaway, Foundation President and Harley-Davidson’s Vice President of Human Resources. “With the Washington Park neighborhood in our corporate office’s backyard, supporting the important and necessary work of Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity is truly neighbors helping neighbors.”

Work on the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative will begin this spring.

Additionally, the company contributed more than $4 million in grants and merchandise in 2012 to organizations focused on education, health or the environment. Among the recipients:

• Milwaukee-based New Threads of Hope received more than $1 million in discontinued apparel and accessories to be distributed among various agencies throughout southeastern Wisconsin.
• United Way of Greater Milwaukee received $284,000 toward its outreach and support programs.
• As part of a four-year, $1 million grant, Disabled American Veterans received $250,000 to help support Harley’s Heroes, a program to help veterans secure their military benefits.
• A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Harley-Davidson’s Pink Label Collection of apparel and accessories goes to breast cancer organizations, totaling nearly $200,000 in 2012.

Other recipients included the Muscular Dystrophy Association; Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee and Kansas City; Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee; Crispus Attucks Center forEmployment and Training in York, Pa.; the Urban Ecology Center of Milwaukee; the YMCA; and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City for Hurricane Sandy relief.