A year before the completion of Levi’s Stadium in 2014, The City of Santa Clara and The NFL have been preparing for Super Bowl 50, taking place Feb. 7, 2016.

Joanne Pasternack, Vice President for Community Relations for the 49ers and a Harker parent, organized special community projects in lieu of the Super Bowl.

“One of the exciting things about having the world really focusing its attention here on Silicon Valley as we go into Super Bowl 50 is that we have the opportunity to bring national, international nonprofits into the Bay Area to do some tremendous community work and to help with the under-resourced or underserved in some way in our community,” Pasternack said.

With a projected four million dollars available to the community, Super Bowl 50 will be the most philanthropic Super Bowl in history. They will be working with upcoming programs which include KaBOOM!, a one day playground construction in association with ESPN and Disney, a Valley Christian facilitated flag football game, marking the inauguration of flag football in the Northern California Special Olympics, Wounded Warriors, and quite a few schools throughout the Bay Area and many others.

“One thing that’s really important to distinguish,” Pasternack said, “is that it’s separate from the 49ers but I do serve on the legacy grant committee. The 49ers have certainly had a voice in helping to determine allocation of those grants, but, ultimately, that is coming from the Super Bowl 50 host committee and from the legacy grant committee.” The KaBOOM! will take place Tuesday, Feb. 2, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and, later that day, the flag football match starts at 7 p.m.

The hotel prices around the Levi Stadium area have also had a dramatic increase in prices. Hyatt Regency Hotel Santa Clara, which usually has rooms starting around 300 dollars a night, have increased their prices four-fold to 1200 dollars a night during the Super Bowl weekend.

There are over 60 community based events in the ten days leading into Super Bowl 50.

“Throughout the week, there will be lots and lots of different events,” Pasternack said. “For example the ‘NFL Experience’ which is up in San Francisco: we have a kid’s day up there where there will be thousands of kids from under-resourced schools who will have an opportunity to come experience that for free.”

There will also be special events for military, families in need, Make-A-Wish, and others.

“I think it’s exciting that we are able be so close to such a big event that the entire nation watches,” Aman Ahluwalia (10) said. “It’s cool that we have the opportunity to go there, and I’ll definitely be watching it.”