The Eagles’ latest social justice campaign backs gun violence prevention and financial education, and honors a community ‘changemaker’

While the Eagles prepare for a deep playoff run, the team also has been focused on something more important than football.

On January 10th, the Eagles will announce a new social justice campaign dedicated to reducing gun violence as part of the NFL’s “Inspire Change” initiative. Building off last year’s campaign, which also centered on gun violence, the team will donate more than $410,000 to nine local nonprofit organizations that target violence prevention and financial education. The money comes from the Eagles’ Social Justice Fund, which is built through matching donations from the players and the team.

While planning this year’s campaign, Eagles executives met with a core group of players, including center Jason Kelce, running back Miles Sanders, and wide receiver A.J. Brown, to discuss where the team should donate funds.

They knew gun violence had to be their focus, but over the course of those conversations, the team and the players decided that taking both a short- and long- term approach to reducing gun violence was essential. That way, they could support organizations working to stop violence happening right now, and also support those focusing on the deeper, societal roots of the problem.

» READ MORE: The Eagles are launching a Philadelphia anti-gun violence initiative

“A lot of gun violence is directly correlated with poverty,” Kelce told The Inquirer. “I think you can address both. You can [help] organizations that are really trying to get gun violence solved now, and you can also address programs and things that are designed to hopefully change the greater issue in Philadelphia, which is how much poverty there is.”

Sanders agreed with his teammate. He explained how growing up in Pittsburgh, he saw and experienced the same cycles of poverty and violence play out. “I think the violence starts with being in poverty,” he said, mentioning conversations he had with Kelce on the subject. “I understand all of it and I grew up from that. And I overcame a lot of that, but I also know a lot of people that are still stuck in that situation. ... So it hits more home to me.”

One of the nonprofits receiving a grant from the Eagles is ACHIEVEability, a West Philly organization dedicated to breaking generational poverty. The money will support and help expand its WorkSmart West Philly program, where young Black people affected by gun violence receive job placement, professional mentorship and counseling to address trauma.

“When you’re living in poverty, you can’t plan for the future,” said Carly Maurer, director of Evaluation and Innovation at ACHIEVEability. “It’s not only poverty, it’s [also] gun violence and having it surround them and impacting their friends and their family. It’s really disruptive and it really prevents you from being able to make sound decisions ... because you’re just so in the moment and trying to get through the day.”

According to Jamila Harris-Morrison, ACHIEVEability’s executive director, WorkSmart West Philly helps participants break out of the day-by-day worldview shaped by violence. “It really is not about, ‘you should act this way.’ [It is], ‘what do you want for your life and how can we help you get there?’”

» READ MORE: Teens and kids impacted by the criminal justice system have ‘the best day’ of their lives

Another West Philly nonprofit being supported by the team is VestedIn and its WesGold Fellows program. Fellows undergo an eight-week internship, where they receive financial literacy and entrepreneurship education, as well as personal development training. The fellows are paid for their time, and also receive a match savings account of as much as $2,000.

Samantha Lyons, the director of the WesGold Fellows program, explained that while the program doesn’t overtly address gun violence, it certainly works toward reducing it. “[This is] what we want [youth] to be doing instead, right? Developing their personal skills and their professional skills and learning about financial literacy in order to break the cycle of poverty that ... negatively [affects] the communities that we serve,” she said.

Other nonprofits receiving grants include:

“On behalf of the Philadelphia Eagles, I would like to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation to the nine grant recipients for all of their hard work and dedication to creating safer, more equitable communities for all Philadelphians,” said Jeffrey Lurie, Philadelphia Eagles chairman & CEO.

“We admire and thank them for leveling the playing field in our communities. I commend our players for taking action and identifying these organizations for the transformational work they do each and every day, and for leveraging the Eagles Social Justice Fund to help combat a major issue facing our city,” he said.

There isalso an individual committed to gun violence prevention who the Eagles are taking special care to support and honor.

Last week, the team awarded Ruth Abaya, an attending physician in the emergency department at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a practice-based scholar at CHOP’s Center for Violence Prevention, the NFL’s new Changemaker Award. The award allows each team to honor one person or group committed to social justice work in the community.

Changemakers receive a $10,000 grant from the NFL Foundation to be directed to the social justice nonprofit of their choice. Abaya’s grant will go to the Center for Violence Prevention, and the Eagles are making an additional $50,000 donation to the center.

Abaya’s research and practice is particularly focused on gun violence. She felt compelled to study gun violence prevention after treating patients who returned repeatedly to the ER with gunshot wounds; one young patient she cared for at CHOP had been shot twice in a month.

“Not only were these original injuries a crisis of public health, but the fact that there was a subset of people who were so high risk and were being re-injured, it felt like there was at the very least [some] prevention that we should be able to do,” Abaya said. She holds a master’s degree in public health and also works with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

Abaya is currently working to create a registry for those who have experienced firearm injuries as a way of studying the level of care they receive and identifying best practices for reducing further violence. “I think that it’s important for us to have eyes as a city on how often individuals who are eligible for certain models of violence prevention are making contact with [them],” she said. “Of all the people who are eligible for [any particular] service, do we capture 3%, 30%? What does that really look like? And then, how do we change that number and increase that number?”

Philadelphia’s gun violence epidemic is the city’s most tragic, intricate, sensitive problem, and the Eagles players acknowledge that solving it isn’t a sure, simple endeavor. Kelce and Sanders believe that their team’s play on the field and donations off of it can at least help to make things better and provide a source of inspiration.

“Hopefully when I’m out there balling, [they] can say, ‘he was one of us.’”

“That’s kind of our role. ... I’m very cognizant that I don’t know all the answers or all the ways to fix things or really have the frame of reference of understanding a lot of these things as a football player and somebody who also was not born and raised in the city of Philadelphia,” Kelce said.

“[But] the ability to shed light on people that I do believe in or people that I do think understand these issues and are doing meaningful things to create change in the city, for its residents, for its kids, for [the] future, I think that that is something that I can get behind.”

“I know every single one of those kids [affected by gun violence], they look up to [an] Eagle or [other] player. They look up to guys like us,” Sanders said. “I actually came from that type of environment. So hopefully when I’m out there balling, [they] can say, ‘he was one of us.’”

Sanders understands how difficult it can be for people to live under the weight of gun violence, but encourages people not to abandon hope that things can get better. “You gotta see a way out,” he said.

“Violence is preventable,” Abaya said, pointing to all of the untapped tools and potential in Philadelphia. “We don’t have to accept [it] as a foregone conclusion.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect the Eagles’ postponement of the official announcement until January 10th in deference to Damar Hamlin’s tragic injury last night, and to add a comment from Eagles CEO Jeffrey Lurie.