Eagles make finals of sports-charity contest

The Philadelphia Eagles take on Manchester United and the Tel Aviv Red Devils on Thursday.

Quarterbacking for the Birds will be Sarah Martinez-Helfman, who's proven she can execute a winning strategy even if her throwing arm might seem suspect.

On the line: the world championship - of sports-related charities, that is.

As the Eagles set off on another season's quest for a thus-far elusive Super Bowl win, coach Andy Reid and his crew might take inspiration from Eagles Youth Partnership (EYP), the team's nonprofit affiliate launched 15 years ago to improve the lives of underprivileged children.

Without the fanfare accorded their helmeted colleagues, EYP's team, led by Martinez-Helfman, has been providing eye exams and glasses, books, and after-school programs for tens of thousands of area children.

Those efforts have now earned some impressive recognition from Beyond Sport, a London-based group that encourages the use of sports worldwide to promote social change.

Its yearly awards ceremony is in Chicago on Thursday, and the Eagles, because of EYP, are finalists vying for the title of sports team of the year.

The others in the running are Manchester United and Hapoel Tel Aviv Football Club (a.k.a. the Red Devils), both soccer teams. Manchester's nonprofit fights obesity, while Hapoel's works to bridge the cultural gaps between Israelis and Palestinians.

"We had 400 entries from 120 countries for nine awards categories," said Nick Keller, founder of Beyond Sport. "So simply to make the short list is an outstanding achievement."

Eagles general manager Joe Banner agrees.

"I feel like we already won, just getting this far, to be among three teams selected from around the world," Banner said.

Such recognition was hardly the point in 1994 when Banner and Jeffrey Lurie were kicking around ideas for a team-related nonprofit even as Lurie was buying the Eagles.

"Eagles Youth Partnership came from the belief that we are stewards of a franchise that is connected culturally to this region in a way that goes far beyond the time we are here," Banner said. "Like any organization that is an important part of the community, we believe we have an obligation to try and make the world around us a little better."

Funding for the group comes from the Eagles, corporate sponsors, individuals, fund-raising events, and grants. Its programs reach about 50,000 children annually.

EYP was created with the mission of improving the health and education of the area's children, but it was still finding its way when the Eagles' 1996 first-round draft choice, offensive lineman Jermane Mayberry, offered some direction.

Mayberry, now retired, is legally blind in one eye because of a treatable condition that went undiagnosed for lack of an eye exam as child.

Negotiating his first contract with the Eagles, Mayberry said he wanted to help children.

EYP suggested creating the Eagles Eye Mobile, a mobile optometry office. Initially funded with a $100,000 grant from Mayberry, the eye mobile was an immediate success.

"We found you can draw kids to things they otherwise would run from if you dress it up as the Eagles," said Martinez-Helfman, EYP's executive director. "The eye mobile was like the Pied Piper. Kids were forging permission slips to get eye exams."

Fourteen years later, the bus-sized vehicle shrink-wrapped in Eagles' green rolls on, stopping at a school a day during the school year to offer free exams, eye care, and glasses for children.

On Tuesday, it was parked outside George Wharton Pepper Middle School in Southwest Philadelphia. Students were brought in for a variety of eye checks by Carter Liotta, an optometrist who is on loan to EYP full time from St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.

"We offer first-class care to a population that doesn't often get first-class care," Liotta said as he prepared to examine Kyiona Chavous-Hall, a precocious eighth grader who counts Michael Vick as her favorite Eagle.

Has she ever had glasses before? Kyiona was asked.

"I had," she replied, emphasizing the verb. It seems she had misplaced a previous pair.

She was in luck. The eye mobile provides its patients two pairs, one kept with the school nurse as a backup. That, however, didn't stop the eye-mobile staff from explaining to Kyiona that a new pair could cost as much as $300.

Martinez-Helfman said the program was not above using the moral authority of the players themselves to encourage responsibility.

"We will tell them, [defensive end] Trent Cole bought you those glasses," she said, "so you have to take really good care of them."

Kyiona promised she would.