Eagles' charitable ventures make life easier for kids

EVERY DAY, Devyn Acosta dreaded school.

He broke his glasses just after he started second grade last year. The family's insurance covered only part of a new pair; there just wasn't money enough to replace the glasses immediately.

For 3 months Devyn, one of four children, went to Moffett Elementary, his glasses taped together, a perfect target for teasing. The repair job was shoddy, and they kept slipping off his little face.

Every day, when he got home from school, Devyn told his mother, Alyna, "Mom, I can't see. And I have to sit in the front of the class."

"It broke my heart," Alyna said.

Then, one day, Devyn came home with not one, but two pairs of new glasses. The Eagles Eye Mobile had visited Moffett Elementary, and Devyn, like 30 of his schoolmates, came home with the world in focus.

Alyna Acosta is one of thousands of parents in the Philadelphia region touched by the Eagles - an effort that has brought the team international acclaim.

They have spent more than $4 million building playgrounds for city schools. They have given away $4 million worth of glasses and vision care, $2.5 million worth of books and other literacy materials from their Book Mobile. They sponsor a chess tournament and a reading program for first- and second-graders with Eagles staff members - at the stadium, no less. In 2004, the Eagles were the first football team to flash pink hats and shirts in October with its Eagles Tackling Breast Cancer promotion that has raised almost $4 million and sparked a leaguewide breast-cancer thrust.

At 4-6, the Super Bowl might be out of reach. Even the playoffs might be too much to ask for, this season. But off the field, the Eagles have a chance to win something they have been building toward for almost as long as they have built toward an NFL title.

For the second straight year, the Eagles Youth Partnership is a finalist for an international honor from Beyond Sport in 2 weeks in Cape Town, South Africa. The award recognizes the sports team that best serves the community in which it prospers.

Now, that would be a true world championship.

"They deserve it," Alyna Acosta said. "They really do take their time."

They have taken the time to lead, too. Tampa Bay and Cleveland now have Eye Mobiles.

In an effort to better serve the community, the Eagles opened the program's doors to a group of MBA candidates at Penn's Wharton School of Business. The resulting 21-page report examined how teams can best use their resources and brand to serve their communities.

"The Eagles have embraced their leadership role on issues important to their community, from working to 'Go Green' to encouraging local children to stay active and healthy," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. "The Eagles Youth Partnership serves as a model for not only the NFL, but all of sports."

Goodell is proud to work with owners who think beyond the bottom line.

"This recognition is a tribute to Christina and Jeffrey Lurie and the entire organization for their forward-thinking approach and commitment to their community," he said.

Beyond Sport is an organization that recognizes and encourages professional sports clubs to promote social change in their communities. Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Great Britain, helped launch the organization and remains the chairman of its ambassadors, who include Olympic champions Michael Johnson and Sebastian Coe.

Since Jeffrey Lurie bought the team in 1994, the Eagles have immersed themselves in helping children in the Delaware Valley.

"As a kid, I always dreamed that if I bought a sports team, I pictured that that sports team could do so much in its community in terms of social impact," Lurie said. "You're going to go through cycles of winning and losing, but you can always have consistent charitable and community outreach."

The Eagles are joined by Premier League soccer teams Manchester City and Liverpool FC and the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies. Mifalot, a children's peace initiative sponsored Hapoel Tel Aviv Football Club in Israel, won last year.

Yes, promoting world peace in a volatile region is a tough act to follow . . . but the Eagles are giving kids glasses, giving kids books and giving kids hope.

It is a warm October morning in South Philadelphia, and the Eye Mobile is on the move. It parks outside Smith Elementary.

Pennsylvania mandates vision screening for elementary students, but budget cuts have forced the district to share nurses. One nurse will cover as many as three schools in a week.

Vision screenings are a luxury. For the Eagles, they are a necessity.

When EYP director Sarah Martinez-Helfman heard about the screening issue, she mobilized.

This October, the Eye Mobile offered screening for about 3,000 kids in schools with part-time nurses. At Smith, more than 150 uniformed grade-schoolers paraded past a dozen trained volunteers from Lincoln Financial, one of the Eagles' chief partners.

Lincoln provides a pool of 120 volunteers.

They got pizza for lunch.

"Lincoln stepped up big-time," said Martinez-Helfman, who has quarterbacked this Dream Team since its inception.

"Some people do it multiple times," says Lisa Buckingham, Lincoln's liaison to the Eagles and an EYP board member.

Yes, employees get excited to volunteer for the hometown team, Buckingham said: "But nobody's asking for anything. The compelling thing is, I'll get phone calls from volunteers the next day, and people are in tears after being around the kids."

Martin Dell, a 24-year-old project manager at Lincoln, wears a T-shirt and khakis and a permanent smile. With remarkable patience and calm, he tests child after child. He is from Lansdowne, and played soccer at Temple, so, yes, he bleeds green . . . but that is coincidental.

"You see a smile or two, you see the impact you're having," Dell said.

Nobody smiles as wide as Smith principal Rachel Marianno. Her job, every day, is to try to engage failing, disaffected kids whose lives can be bleak and terrifying.

Enter the Eagles.

"It adds sunshine," Marianno said. "It builds hope, is what it does. It makes you feel special. Children will go home today and say, 'Eagles were here!'

"They show up, and it says, 'I care about you. I really want to give back to the community.' "

It helps teacher morale, too. Routinely, a poor student becomes a capable student just because he can see the blackboard.

"From a school perspective, it's very empowering," Marianno said. "There are so many families who don't have the financial wherewithal to supply their children with glasses and the consistent vision care that's needed. Sometimes, they don't know what it is that's hindering their learning."

What makes the Eagles so worthy of international recognition lies less in the media-accessible deeds than in the team's constant push to help without the benefit of publicity.

"They do it consistently," Marianno said. "They give you the warm-and-fuzzies."

Last year, the Eagles helped fund the City Year team that helped out at Vare Elementary - a $50,000 outlay for which they sought no credit.

Eagles staff members host first- and second-graders to read with them on Mondays in the offseason. The Book Mobile gives away a library's worth of reading material every year; often, it is the first book a child has ever owned.

"It's a sacred, hushed moment," Martinez-Helfman said.

Chilling . . . but nothing gives the chills like the team's fight to save children's sight.

Last year, when it realized even more kids needed vision screening and glasses, the Eagles partnered with the Wills Eye Institute and Thomas Jefferson University for a day of free screenings.

People began showing up at 4 a.m., grandparents and parents and little kids shivering under blankets to fight the chilly spring air. By the time the screenings began at 8:30, the lines went around the block.

They examined almost 1,500 children that day. The next one is April 14.

Devyn won't have to go. His family is one that EYP already has touched.

His sister, Chasity, also got glasses last year. The Eagles built a playground at Moffett. Devyn was a weekly reader at the stadium.

"How can I put it? He would come home so excited that he had read at the stadium," Alyna Acosta said. "What they did for Moffett with the playground and with the glasses . . . It's all so very helpful."

It took off in 1996, when first-round pick Jermaine Mayberry lumbered into Martinez-Helfman's office, plopped down $100,000 of his signing bonus as said, "I want to help kids."

Mayberry lost sight in one eye when a condition went undiagnosed as a child. He wanted to keep that from happening to other poor children. A picture of Mayberry, now retired, remains on the side of the Eye Mobile, a legacy of generosity - and an office for Carter Liotta.

Liotta is a 34-year-old optometrist who joined the Eye Mobile part time when he exited optometry school in 2003. Within a year, he was hooked.

"As the program grew, I decided to make it my primary practice," Liotta said. "It's beyond incredible."

He instituted the practice of more comprehensive eye exams, to treat eye-health issues more efficiently and more effectively. Liotta might make more money having hung his shingle in the suburbs, but he wouldn't burst with pride the way he does in a wide, dim hallway at Smith Elementary, contemplating the team's second straight shot at a life-altering world title.

"The Philadelphia Eagles have consistently impressed with their work in the community - not just this year, but on a long-term basis," said Beyond Sport founder Nick Keller. "The ownership and management of the Eagles clearly realize that, by supporting the city, the city will continue its love affair with one of the world's great teams."

Lurie blushes at the prospect of owning the team with the biggest heart in the world: "It was never the goal to be recognized."

That might be, but Lurie has plenty of people rooting for this off-the-field honor.

"Once again the entire Eagles organization has given us a reason to be proud," Mayor Nutter said. "I sincerely hope that they win."

Bookish and slight, Liotta cannot help but lay down some smack talk worthy of DeSean Jackson:

"We kind of deserve it."