LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD INC
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Mission Statement
Leveling the Playing Field gives underprivileged children the opportunity to enjoy the mental and physical benefits of youth sports participation. We do this through the donation of used and excess sporting equipment to programs and schools serving low-income communities. Our donations allow programs to allocate funds saved by lowering registration fees, expanding their scholarship programs, enhancing their existing athletic program and/or developing new ones.
About This Cause
LPF gives children in under-resourced communities the opportunity to enjoy the mental and physical benefits of youth sports participation. We do this by gathering used and excess sporting equipment and distributing it to programs and schools serving low-income communities. For decades, sports have broken down barriers of neighborhood and class, even ushering in the earliest instances of racial integration. Today, however, sports are increasingly the mainstay of the wealthy. A growing income gap in the U.S. has resulted in a growing opportunity gap. Wealthier families, who spend an average of 8x as much on extracurricular activities, are driving the professionalization of youth sports, putting sports out of reach of lower income families at the same time that school budgets dwindle and rec centers close. Such “pay to play” sports leagues effectively strip resources from community and rec leagues, at a serious cost to children and youth in low-income neighborhoods. Access to sports has unfortunately become a serious equity issue, spurring lawsuits in places like New York City public schools where black and Latino students were found to have access to 10 fewer teams on average than white students. More than a “nice to have,” research has shown that sports participation is associated with a wide range of positive outcomes. Sports are inextricably linked to improved cognitive development, better grades, improved school attachment and behavior and increased rates of high school graduation and college matriculation. Sports are powerful protective factors, lowering rates of crime, gang involvement and alcohol, tobacco and drug use. Children and youth who play sports are happier and healthier as children and as adults. Venerable institutions like The Aspen Institute, RAND and Pew Charitable Trusts are all studying the decline of sports participation among lower income populations and are working toward solutions. One thing they’ve landed on: find ways to share sports equipment and facilities to lower costly barriers to entry. That’s where Leveling the Playing Field comes in. By saving money on sports equipment, our partner schools and nonprofits can not only offer the incredible opportunity of organized and recreational sports to underserved children, they can lower registration fees, expand their scholarship programs, enhance their existing athletic program and/or develop new ones. LPF has found success in meeting this particular need. Founded in 2013 in Washington, D.C., we opened our second chapter in Baltimore City in 2018 and just this past year we opened program number three in Philadelphia. To date, we have distributed over $8.3M worth of sports equipment to over 1,200 schools and youth organizations. In 2021 alone, we provided over $2.5M worth of gear to almost 500 different programs in the D.C. and Baltimore areas as well as in and around Philadelphia. To meet the demand from our communities, we run three core programs. They are as follows: Collection Program: LPF runs an extensive collection program throughout the youth sports community. On weekends, we run collection drives at sports leagues, tournaments, community events, earth day fairs and any grassroots-level event where we think we can collect from families cleaning out their garages or basements. Donors also drop equipment at our warehouse almost daily, and we support students and adults to run collection drives of their own with materials we provide them. These typically include mitzvah projects, scout projects, honors societies, school clubs and so much more. While 90% of our donations are received this way, we also solicit donations of discontinued or overstock goods from sporting goods companies. We accept a wide variety of sports equipment, supporting participation in more accessible sports like football and baseball as well as sports typically reserved for higher income populations, like lacrosse, tennis, hockey and golf. LPF gathers more than just balls, sticks and mitts; we are equipped to collect, sort and re-distribute head-to-toe sports needs, everything from cleats to goggles, helmets, pads and socks. We even collect traditional recreation equipment like hula hoops, frisbees, bicycles, free weights and jump ropes. We collect over $2.5M worth of gear every year! Volunteer Program: With a consistent flow of donations coming into our warehouse we work diligently to engage the volunteer community to keep volunteers of all ages coming to our warehouse to sort and inventory equipment. Our typical volunteer is a middle-school aged boy or girl but we work closely with corporate groups, student groups, college clubs, teams, etc. Last year we had over 1,000 volunteers in our warehouses in D.C. and Baltimore. Distribution Program: Both the collection and volunteer program fuel our core program of distributing the equipment. Schools and community-based organizations or programs apply for an equipment grant online. If the program meets our criteria, we then set up a site visit or phone call to further vet the program, and, more importantly, develop a rapport with that organization. Once a program has been approved, they are invited to our warehouse to “shop” for free and are welcome to our supply as often as they want. They do not ever have to reapply. As a result, we see some programs once a year and others quite literally every month. Of the programs we provide equipment to, 50% are schools, 35% are youth/after-school programs and 15% are pure youth sports teams or leagues.