Penn Athletics – Community Service
Other Initiatives
Philadelphia’s nickname, the City of Brotherly Love, is not lost on Penn Athletics. As one of its five core values, the Athletics Department recognizes that “community matters,” encouraging teams to engage with their city and get involved in giving back and showing that “brotherly love.”
Community Matters: We represent the Red and Blue, which gives us substance, strength, courage, and understanding to make the impossible possible.
Providing opportunities for student-athletes to serve their campus and their community helps them develop outside of athletics and academics and contribute to society productively. Encouraging participation in community service programs and initiatives benefits all involved. For community members, the efforts of Penn’s athletic teams have led to youth development opportunities on the field and in the classroom, community building and betterment initiatives, and much more. For Penn student-athletes, students have developed character, leadership, perspective, and team cohesion while volunteering their time to impact the lives of those around them.
With 33 teams representing Penn Athletics, there are many programs and initiatives in which student-athletes are involved. Here are some examples at a glance:
Uplifting Athletes
Uplifting Athletes is a nonprofit organization that uses football as a vehicle for raising awareness and funds for research into rare diseases. This organization, completely led by student-athletes themselves, provides athletes the opportunity to develop leadership and organizational skills. Penn’s football team is heavily involved in Uplifting Athletes. The Penn Chapter serves the rare disease community in honor of fellow Quakers Dr. David Fajgenbaum and Kaleb Germinaro. Fajgenbaum is a rare disease researcher at Penn and is also a rare disease patient battling Castleman disease. Germinaro is a former Quakers wide receiver who became a student-coach after being diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.
We Can Swim!
Penn’s Swimming and Diving teams run a program called We Can Swim!, which teaches underserved children in local Philadelphia neighborhoods the basics of swimming and water safety. The Penn Swimming and Diving program understands the value of learning these skills at a young age in order to promote safety and prevent unnecessary water-related accidents. Student volunteers offer free lessons to children from 1st to 6th grades right in Penn’s pool on campus.
Beat the Streets Philadelphia
Beat the Streets Philadelphia is a nonprofit organization serving under-resourced youth in Philadelphia by providing them the opportunity to engage in a productive, healthy extracurricular activity – wrestling. The Penn wrestling team is heavily involved in this program, which uses wrestling as a vehicle to keep youth active and to provide them with mentoring opportunities to learn life skills and receive individualized academic support.
After School Soccer Program
The Penn women’s soccer team, under the leadership of team member Paige Lombard, started a University-Assisted Community School (UACS) afterschool soccer program. UACS, a Netter Center program, educate, engage, empower, and serve not only students, but also all other members of the community in which the school is located. Lombard and her teammates divide between local affiliated elementary schools to give an hour soccer lesson to students each week of their off-season. At the end of the year, students from the three schools get together at Penn Park to compete against each other and represent their schools. The coaches join and help make the end-of-year event a success.
Girls on the Run
Penn’s Field Hockey team is involved with Girls on the Run, a program that empowers young girls to recognize their potential and feel confident in their pursuit of it. Through weekly meetings, girls learn life skills and the value of relationship development through curricula that highlight the fun of movement. At the culmination of each program, girls complete a 5k run with their running buddy from their time in the program.
Vs. Cancer
Penn’s baseball team participates in raising money for Vs. Cancer, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving the lives of children suffering from cancer by giving teams a platform to make a difference through fundraising efforts. The Penn baseball team’s efforts help to contribute to the organizations goals of improving the lives of children suffering from cancer, while also funding research into life-saving treatments.
Friend of Jaclyn
This organization, which aims to improve the lives of children suffering from brain tumors and various pediatric cancers, is supported by many of Penn’s teams, including women’s basketball, football, men’s soccer, and wrestling. The organization’s goal is to find a team to show friendship, support, and love to every afflicted child with whom it works. Children are paired with Penn’s participating teams to receive just that.
Be the Match
Be the Match, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program, is a bone marrow registry that works to match donors and recipients of marrow transplants in order to save lives. Be the Match raises money for critical research and education, and to help support transplant recipients and their families during the transplant journey. Penn football is involved in supporting this organization and its goals.
Hallowell Elementary’s “Go for 3!” Spirit Day
Among their work with other elementary schools, the Penn Men’s basketball team partnered up with a local elementary school, Hallowell Elementary, to provide a special day for students. Two team members joined Coach Donahue in front of the school for a question and answer assembly about the life skills of leadership and goal setting, before the Hallowell students headed outside to do fun, engaging basketball drills with Penn’s student-athletes. It was a good display of teaching fundamental life skills along with fundamental sport skills.
Philabundance
Philabundance is a local organization, servicing 9 counties in Philadelphia and the surrounding area, that collects and provides food for over three quarters of a million people in the local area. This year Penn’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) hosted a dodgeball tournament that served as a canned food drive to collect food for Philabundance. Although the committee’s primary role is to represent Penn student-athletes and serve as a liaison between peers and the athletic administration, the students who make up the committee value engaging with their campus and local community and giving back. SAAC collected nearly 400 canned food donations with this one dodgeball event.
