Every team talks about being a family. Bishop Chatard High School volleyball coach Larry Leonhardt knows his Trojans aren't just part of a family tree, but a forest.

Leonhardt saw the impact his team had on Cathedral coach Jean Kesterson when it attended the funeral for her mother last year and considered the support that rivals have provided his players in times of tragedy.

"We talk about volleyball teams being families but it transcends (individual programs)," he said. "The rivalries are fun and great and we don't want to take away from that but there's a larger sisterhood that's shared."

Two of the area's biggest volleyball rivals will embrace those connections for tonight's match at Chatard. The host school will sell T-shirts and accept donations from fans. Proceeds go to charities battling illnesses that claimed the parents of three of its players and Kesterson's mother.

Bishop Chatard has endured the deaths of Jina Beery's mother to a brain tumor, Katie McCalley's to muscular dystrophy and the father of Kellie Tekulve, a former player, who died suddenly of a heart attack. Leonhardt said the money raised will be divided into donations for several charities, including the Muscular Dystrophy, Alzheimer's and American Heart associations.

All fans are being encouraged to wear white.

"It'll be a competitive volleyball match (and) it starts Cathedral-Bishop Chatard rivalry week but it also gets across the bigger picture; that we're all one family even though we wear different colored jerseys," Leonhardt said.