Plans are under way for the sixth annual charity softball tournament called the Cranberry Community Uniting People, better known as the Cranberry CUP, set for the weekend of Aug. 5-7.

Golf is being added to the annual fund-raiser, which last year collected $55,000 for a local child with brain cancer, said Cathy Cortazzo, president of the Cranberry CUP organization.

The golf outing will be held Aug. 5 at Cranberry Highlands. A kickoff party will be held at 7 p.m. Aug. 5 in the Cranberry Highlands grill room. Softball games will be played throughout Aug. 6-7 in Cranberry Park, with the championship beginning at 6 p.m. Aug. 7.

This year's beneficiaries are 9-year-old Dakota Dore, of Cranberry, who needs a second bone marrow transplant and is the son of a single mother, and Isabelle Rose Christenson, who recently received a quadruple organ transplant. Her parents were raised in Cranberry and recently moved to Ohio for work, but they have been staying at a local hotel to be close to Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Last year's tournament raised money for Alex Poust, who died in December.

The first charity tournament in 2000 raised $3,800 for the American Cancer Society. Cortazzo coordinated a tournament among eight local neighborhoods as a "fun thing to do." The event has grown dramatically each year, both in terms of participants and money raised. Proceeds from tournaments following the first were dedicated to people with local connections.

The Cranberry CUP, which recently received federal tax-exempt status, draws hundreds of participants from Cranberry and Seven Fields, Cortazzo said.

Coordinators contact each neighborhood to field and sponsor a team, and many local businesses and community groups enter teams as well.

Last year, 36 neighborhoods and a dozen businesses fielded teams.

Cranberry Parks and Recreation Director Mike Diehl said the annual undertaking is the township's largest, both in number of participants and number of spectators the tournament attracts.

"For the opening ceremonies alone, about a thousand people attended,'' Diehl said.

Diehl said funds derived from the tournament are raised in a variety of ways: Everyone who plays on a team pays $100; every team is given raffle tickets to sell, with almost all the proceeds going to the recipients; the kickoff party, which generally attracts about 400 people, costs $15 per person to attend, but sponsors donate the food so the proceeds go to the charity.

Township supervisors praised Cortazzo and her volunteers for their work at a recent meeting. .

Diehl said he's equally impressed by the sense of community the tournament brings the township.

"The money raised is wonderful," he said, "but this started with the idea of people getting to know people in Cranberry."