Player Engagement Insider

Sarah Martinez-Helfman just wanted to help people, children in particular. The NFL, and specifically the Philadelphia Eagles, gave her the chance. 

Martinez-Helfman is the Executive Director of the Eagles Youth Partnership, the charity wing of the football club that makes it a point to help the youth in the Philadelphia area and won the Beyond Sports Award for its community work in 2011. 

“I’ve always been a tomboy, a jock,’’ Martinez-Helfman said. “I’ve always loved sports, and football. “I didn’t come here because of football. I came here because there is an enormous platform to affect social change, using football, using the brand of the Eagles.’’

She has done just that.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Martinez-Helfman became a Cornhusker fan at an early age and then when her family moved to the suburbs of Pittsburgh, she became a Steelers’ fan.

“First time I ever got punched in the stomach was during a Steelers game,’’ she said. “I walked into a middle of a fight while we were looking for Milk Duds. I remember it clearly.’’

Sarah joined the Eagles in 1995, Ray Rhodes’ first year as a head coach. Yes, it was that long ago, and has been at it ever since, using the Eagles brand to help as many as 50,000 children a year.

“We started out making grants for after school programs,’’ she said. “That’s the most dangerous time of the day for kids from 3-6 p.m.  The dream was a player would walk through the door and say ‘I care about kids and I want to put my voice, my money and muscle behind it.’ And that player was Jermane Mayberry.’’

Mayberry, the Eagles’ No. 1 draft pick, under Rhodes, in 1996 was legally blind in his left eye. The condition came about because it was never discovered when he was young. His mission was to help kids with the same problem. Martinez-Helfman and the EYP were eager to help him.

“Jermane walked in with his agent right after we chose him in the first round of the draft,’’ Martinez-Helfman said. “He said he wanted to do something for kids. When I asked him what he really cared about, he said eye exams. I didn’t know his whole story. He told me how he never had an eye exam as a kid. He got us started, and it all evolved from there.’’

The Eagles began the Eye Mobile, which went on the road in a 60-mile radius of the city, into New Jersey and Delaware as well, to give underprivileged children eye exams and glasses if they needed them.

“We went back and checked and see if the kids were wearing the glasses, after one month, after four months and a year. Most of them were still wearing them and when asked why they said because they came from the Eagles.’’

The Eye Mobile led to the Book Mobile.

Now, and since 2000, Martinez-Helfman and her five-person crew tour the area making sure kids have books to read.

“Once a child can see, he or she can read,’’ she said. “We had so much leverage. With the eye mobile we were like the Pied Piper. It’s all Eagled up. Kids would forge permission slips to get eye exams. Imagine what they would do if they understood that players on the team liked to read, could we get more books into their hands. Or get them for the first time.

“Most of these kids have never owned a book before, so the pride of ownership. When they get that book and they see that football-shaped bookplate and they start to scribe their name that this is my book, it’s almost sacred.’’

Next up for the EYP is the Summer Learning Slide, helping kids from urban areas in the summer months when there’s no school. 

“Research shows low-income children track at almost the same pace as their middle and upper income peers during the school year, but in the summer they have such limited opportunity to learn and grow that they slip back,’’ Martinez-Helfman said. “By fifth grade a low income child is two-three years behind, just because of the summer.

“We’re trying to stem the tide of what happens in the summer.’’

How did this all happen. Why does Martinez-Helfman do what she does?

“I’m wired to leave the world better than I found it,’’ she said. “That’s an ethic that I got from both of my parents. And so it turns out that pro sports is one of the best platforms to be able to do that. Kids who are most vulnerable, most marginalized, most at risk of failing through the cracks, we can get to them and change their behavior.’’ 

Learn More About Eagles Youth Partnership