Compassion in Action!

Playing It Forward is a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization that provides new and used sports equipment to disadvantaged children around the world.

Promotes and support an active lifestyle that enables children to participate in sports regardless of their ability. Disadvantaged children should not be deprived of the opportunity to grow and we aim to do our part by providing these children with safe equipment.

Playing It Forward is also doing its part to support the environment by recycling usable used equipment.

A few new projects that have come up in recent weeks (with wish lists) that could be neat collection projects for kids include:

• supporting a group in Mali who are organizing a soccer program for girls
• collecting items to support a soccer organization in Aruba that works with 3000 kids

Playing It Forward
c/o Brooks School
1160 Great Pond Road
North Andover, MA 01845 617.894.0655

The NFL features its players all wearing the pink gloves and pink shin guards for the month of October in its Breast cancer awareness month.

It is profound and memorable and in our face for the NFL season has kicked off and we are all glued to our Sunday Night Football favorites.

A boy, a senior at Rye Neck High School, sees this and decides on his own to carry forth this tradition. His mom has struggled in her fight against breast cancer. The boy goes out and buys the pink gloves and shin guards. He wears them to the home game that Saturday unbenounced to his mom. She sees her son, the captain of his school football team and tears fill her eyes.

The whole team and the stands cheer this boy as he takes the field. The team the next week proud to stand in solidarity of their captain and proud to support his cause to bring awareness to the fight against breast cancer all appear the next week in the pink gloves and shin guards. Kids in the stands have dies streaks of their hair pink as well. all in support of the October Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

This is a boy who is trying to bring awareness to the epidemic levels of breast cancer, statistics that continue to climb out of control and render every family touched by this cancer. Moms, aunts, cousins, sisters, grandmothers. Friends.

Real Men Wear Pink is this single boy’s stand to step up and honor the NFL players he admires in their support of this devastating sickness.

This letter applauds this boy’s effort to show his local community that he is a leader and a role model and one voice and one gesture really can make a difference. I honor this kid’s courage to prove that yes, real men do wear pink. And pink is the new black, in a hip and ‘in your face’ approach to proudly wear the color that has become synonymous with the 1 in 8 (women) struggle* against what the American Cancer Foundation deems the most common cancer among American women.

*Breast cancer is the most common cancer among American women, except for skin cancers. The chance of developing invasive breast cancer at some time in a woman's life is a little less than 1 in 8 (12%),according to The American Cancer Society.