BALTIMORE, MD – Northwest Regional Park is home to the official Ravens-themed playground in Owings Mills, Maryland. A five-hundred-thousand-dollar donation was made by the team in October of 2022 that funded the project as they continue to support the community. Most people in the surrounding area seem to be very proud of what the Ravens are doing.

Ravens Themed Playground in Owings Mills, MD. Photo Credit:  James Diggs

The Ravens host several charitable events throughout the Baltimore community. In order to do so they work through their community relations department which falls under corporate communications. The community relations department is busy throughout the year. For instance, they host Thanksgiving food giveaways and food drives, many back-to-school events, and they work with players who are supporting the Baltimore community. “We want to give back to them not just by winning games, but also telling them that their support means so much and that we are just as invested in their lives too.” Said Drew Meyer, Sr Coordinator of Community Relations for the Baltimore Ravens.

Since 2007, the NFL has implemented a program to help boost the health and wellness of youth across the country. This program is called the NFL PLAY60 Initiative and their goal is to promote physical activity amongst youth for at least sixty minutes a day and influence youth to fuel their bodies with nutritious foods. The PLAY60 initiative has been able to support more than 38 million children across the country with resources and programs to help improve their activity levels. PLAY 60 has provided more than $361 million to over 73,000 schools, along with constructing more than 282 youth fitness zones across the nation.

The Ravens also support Baltimore Squash Wise, an after-school youth development program for students in Baltimore City Public Schools. Emily Franz, Director of Development for Squash Wise notes The Ravens support for the program has helped immensely with the programs ability to provide better equipment and resources for the youth. “The PLAY 60 initiative has supported our coaches with delivering that great squash programming that happens every week,” said Franz. Squash Wise was a recipient of the Ravens Play60 grant and Franz says it will lead to the construction of a new facility.

It is well established that many professional athletes earn millions of dollars, while the cities they play in often spend millions to build new stadiums.  As a result, some skeptics think the teams and athletes should give back to the community in some ways. “There are a lot of people who think the teams should be obligated to do this,” said Sarah Martinez-Helfman, executive director of the Eagles Youth Partnership.

There’s even research that indicates sports teams are a hinderance to a city’s economy as they neither attract any significant tourism nor create enough jobs to affect the economy with their new facilities. In their Brookings book, “Sports, Jobs, and Taxes,” economics professors Roger G. Noll & Andrew Zimbalist and 15 collaborators examine the local economic development of cities with and without professional sports teams. They conducted case studies of the effect of specific facilities, as well as comparisons among cities that have and haven’t invested millions of dollars into sports development. Their conclusions revealed that “a new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity or employment.”

Equipment at the Ravens Themed Playground. Photo Credits:  James Diggs

Many professional sports organizations sponsor charities that are tailored to supporting youth and the NFL is no different. The NFL has partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) since 2019 supporting youth by providing them with mentors who are called “Bigs.” The mentees are called “Littles” and the relationship between the two is supposed to emulate one of a sibling. The NFL organization and a few of their players are working together with BBBSA to host their new campaign “The Big Draft”; a nationwide campaign that was created to “…increase mentorship opportunities across the country.”

“The Baltimore Ravens are a great leader and partner in the Baltimore community…” – Emily Franz, Baltimore SquashWise Director of Development

For now, the Ravens have declared the playground to be one of their signature community service projects. The Ravens also completed their annual Earth Day Project that serves the city of Baltimore by helping rebuild and restore communities. FOX45 Baltimore reported over 100 staff members from the Ravens participated in a clean-up event that took place in the South Baltimore city area. They partnered with Empact Art, Lafayette Square Community Development Corporation, and M&T Bank to plant trees, paint storage units, and lay down stained glass floor panels throughout the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood.

In the coming months the Ravens are expected to announce another major community service project. Meanwhile Franz says the new Howard Street Squash Wise facility will be opened by 2025. “The Baltimore Ravens are a great leader and partner in the Baltimore community,” says Franz. “The Ravens are a good thought partner, funder for organizations like ours in Baltimore and we’re really grateful to be one of their grantees.”