Ms. Devine now has an even bigger challenge as executive director of the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative, a group that is working with other groups to bring sports activities to every corner of the city. The 30 youth sports organiza- tions in the group serve 15,000 to 20,000 kids ranging from kindergarten age to high schoolers. Each organization offers something meaningful in addition to sports, such as homework help and leadership skills. “It can’t be just sport,” Ms. Devine says, because an important objective is to help kids grow into well-rounded adults. As leader of the collaborative, she works with the Philadelphia government and school district offi- cials and other groups. Ms. Devine says there are over 330,000 children in Philadelphia, and “our goal is that those children, if they want to, can go and play a sport in their neighborhood.” She says she hears stories all the time about the benefits of playing sports. “We’ve heard a lot of adults in Philadelphia say that if they hadn’t had sports, they would have ended up in a difficult place, dropping out of school or worse,” Ms. Devine says. Even if an organized sports team isn’t for you, she says, you can find ways to be active: “Move. Put everything down and move.” “We were not built to sit still all the time,” Ms. Devine says. “Your heart and your lungs and your muscles stay healthy when you move. And sports is the most fun way to do that.” —By Healthy Comet staff Cole Manor Elementary School 11 Illustrations by Leidan Martin-Johnson, Whitehall Healthy Reporter