Meet the group providing access to second-hand equipment so ‘every kid can play a sport’

Mary Crowe was determined to provide hockey equipment for a youth club she runs in Erie, Pa., no matter how far she had to go or how long it took. So following a six-hour drive, she arrived at the doors of a nonprofit called Leveling the Playing Field in Sharon Hill.

Crowe’s search would soon be fulfilled.

“‘Take as much as you need, whatever you need for your program,’” Crowe recalled being told when she walked through the warehouse. “They were incredibly generous from the get-go and they give you this enormous bin to take what you need.

“We laughed about the fact that it didn’t smell. I have two kids that play hockey, so I expected the entire warehouse full of kids sporting goods to smell like a bad locker room — It didn’t.”

Crowe is a director for Lake Erie Sports Alliance, a first-year program that’s committed to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion within hockey.

In August she found Leveling the Playing Field (LPF) through a Google search and learned that the nonprofit collects new and used sports equipment and then distributes the equipment to schools and organizations, who can’t afford or have access to those resources.

“I have a full-time career and two kids that play hockey, so there are very few free weekends, but the stars all align,” Crowe said. “I plan to go back. What LPF does allows me to provide more kids the opportunity to play.”

Crowe’s story is one of many from people who have been impacted by LPF. The organization was founded in 2013 by Max Levitt and originally started in Washington, D.C. It has since expanded to other locations, including Philadelphia which opened two years ago. They plan to add a warehouse in Buffalo and Columbus.

After LPF’s second location opened in Baltimore, Levitt, a Syracuse graduate from Montgomery County, Md., received multiple calls from parents, coaches, and physical education teachers, asking if one would be coming to Philly in the near future.

“When we decided to shift to Philadelphia, we wanted to raise a lot of money to rent a warehouse and hire staff,” Levitt said. “The Eagles were on board pretty quickly and gave us a pretty significant amount of money. They also brought players, staff, and a lot of media to our warehouse for opening day where they literally came and built it.”

“We immediately started to work on this goal of making sure that every kid can play a sport.”

A picture hangs on a bulletin board inside the Philly LPF building of Eagles players and members of the Boys Latin football team together on opening day. It was a moment that Program Director Danielle Miller, a Temple graduate from Lake-Lehman, Pa., hasn’t forgotten.

“It was absolutely incredible,” Miller said. “We wanted to make an impact as quickly as we could and what better way than to have a professional sports team and invite a local football team? We immediately started to work on this goal of making sure that every kid can play a sport.”

LPF’s Philly location has had 496 distributions this year while impacting 258 programs across the area. According to Levitt, they are on pace to collect more than a million dollars worth of equipment.

“That means that people are coming back more than once,” Miller said. “We want to impact new programs, but we want people to return.”

Levitt grew up playing basketball and hockey. When he got to college he wanted to keep sports a part of his life, which led him to major in sports management.

He landed a position as sports equipment manager for the Syracuse football team, where he witnessed how much sports equipment goes to waste at the college level.

“One of the first things I was asked to do when I started working for the team in early August — about a month before the student body arrived and maybe a week before training camp — was that Nike was going to be sending all of the gear for the season. Throughout the week, we needed to clear out the practice facility equipment and locker room, so that when the new product comes, we have a place to put it.”

Levitt couldn’t get past the idea of quality equipment being thrown away. The thought stuck with him. In the summer months, Levitt would work at his local recreational center. He then took notice of all the equipment that would sit on the shelves or in the shed collecting dust.

While it wasn’t millions of dollars worth of product, he said, someone else might find better use of it.

That’s when the lightbulb hit.

“I worked in the NFL, minor league baseball, youth sports, and college football, the waste of sports equipment is humongous,” Levitt said. “There’s some sort of a business opportunity with this kind of inefficiency in the secondary market. That’s when I began learning, unintentionally, about the inequity that exists in the youth sports industry and all the various financial barriers that kind of stand.”

What started as a side gig, while working a full-time job and living out of his parents’ basement, turned into a passion project that has given thousands of student-athletes an opportunity to play a sport.

“A huge part of our identity as an organization is the community,” Levitt said. “We are still a small nonprofit like we do not have warehouse staff that just does warehouse work. We have hundreds of volunteers who go out and run collection drives on our behalf. Dozens of people who go out and run fundraisers for us. You rely on grassroots support to be successful.”

A few days after the news circulated of LPF’s opening in Philly, Miller received a call from Bryn Mawr Running Company, saying they wanted to drop off brand new track spikes (for reference new spikes can cost around $180) that have been sitting in their storage unit.

In February 2021, which is officially when they could begin distribution, Mike Deegan, an extracurricular clubs coordinator of Mastery Charter Schools, reached out looking for spikes.

“He’s like, ‘The girls are essentially running around the perimeter of the school in Converse,’” Miller said. “The girls had their season. He ended up coming back and said that the girls won their championship. Getting those [spikes] into the hands of the girls who need it the most — it’s just such a cool story.”

The warehouse has a variety of sports equipment but also gives out sneakers, cleats, and sports bras.

“A sports bra is a piece of equipment,” Miller said. “You can’t play without it. It’s something that’s overlooked by people, by coaches, the majority of coaches are male too. It’s not even intentionally overlooking it, it’s that they don’t think about it because they don’t have to use a sports bra. By having that as a piece of equipment, it takes the stigma out of it. It makes it way more accessible for girls to play.”

Anyone, regardless of geographic location, can fill out an application for receiving equipment. LPF has served schools in the city, Philly suburbs, and South Jersey area.

As for having items donated, LPF has donation bins located in recreational centers, including at the Phield House on Spring Garden Street and AFC Fitness in Bala Cynwyd. They also have the support of the Union, Eagles, Sixers and Flyers, and are arranging to partner with the Phillies.

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In the future, Miller plans to hold pop-up distribution sites around the area to alleviate the gap of those who don’t have transportation or resources to travel to the warehouse.

“Prior to working here, I was a little bit ignorant to the cost of equipment and how that can really be a barrier,” Miller said. “That’s just one part of it. The cost of registration fees or a single parent who can’t afford to have their kids play. We’re happy that we can address one of them. But obviously, there’s tons of more work to be done.”