Robinson ’18 Raises $11,000 for Local Nonprofit

Logan Robinson ’18 has raised $11,000 for a Silver Spring nonprofit that provides sports equipment to underserved communities, a donation from Gatorade that follows the drink company naming her its District of Columbia Softball Player of the Year last spring.

Along with the state Player of the Year banner comes the right to select a youth sports organization to receive a $1,000 grant from Gatorade’s Play it Forward program. Robinson chose Leveling the Playing Field as her beneficiary. Months later, her essay promoting the organization won a national contest, resulting in another $10,000 for Leveling the Playing Field.

“I knew that I wanted to give to something that wasn’t already well funded, and I wanted [the recipient] to be able to take that money and do a lot with it,” Robinson said. She added that the impact of Leveling the Playing Field “is felt immediately, as soon as the glove, racket, ball, etc. arrives.”

If you don’t have a bat, a ball, or gloves, you can’t play softball, and Leveling the Playing Field collects used sports equipment and then distributes it to would-be athletes who lack the gear. A 2014 University of Florida study found that only 15 percent of children from families making less than $25,000 a year play youth sports, compared with 33 percent of those from families making more than $100,000.

“We rely completely on individual donations and foundation grants to stay afloat, and this surprise $11,000 grant will give us the chance to help more kids get off the sidelines and into the game,” said Maitlyn Healy, executive director of Leveling the Playing Field. “We are so proud of Logan and are so grateful for her generosity in choosing our organization to benefit from her award. Logan is our MVP!"

Robinson is now a freshman at Carleton College, where she will play softball next spring. She discovered Leveling the Playing Field while completing a Middle School assignment, when she was tasked to study an issue affecting her local area. She chose the lack of sports equipment as her issue, and she was thrilled to learn that Leveling the Playing Field was newly addressing this need.

Since its founding in 2013, Leveling the Playing Field has distributed about $1.5 million worth of sports equipment, Robinson said, through 100,000 donations.

She wrote in her winning essay, “I truly believe that if Leveling the Playing Field were to get this grant, so many more young athletes would be able to get the chance to succeed in not only the sport, but life.”

To learn more about Leveling the Playing Field, visit levelingtheplayingfield.org.