177888921
Rose Poulshock was a huge Eagles’ fan. She passed this August from peritoneal cancer, but not before 54 seasons as a season ticketholder and a ruthless gameday analyst. Her son Marc wanted to do something special for her, and he’s done that and more by agreeing to a #GivingTuesday commitment of up to $54,000 to match any donations made to the Eagles Youth Partnership, a $1,000 for every year Rosey sat in her chair at Franklin Field, the defunct Veterans Stadium and Lincoln Financial Field, 1020 Pattison Ave.
“It has been 54 years, more than 700 games, and there she sits, the most dedicated Eagles’ fan on the planet,” Marc Poulshock wrote in his first e-mail to Eagles’ Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie. “In freezing cold, snow, rain, hot sun, day, night, Thursday, Sunday, Monday, Franklin Field, Vet Stadium, The Linc, no matter the weather, no matter the day, no matter the field, she still comes.”
The Poulshock family grew up in Olney mostly, in Northeast Philly, with a beloved Shore home in Ventnor. Rose’s husband bought them their first season tickets as a first wedding anniversary present on the heels of a 1960 championship season, which is telling, because Rose never got to see her ‘Iggles’ win a Super Bowl, and also because Marc says, like most husbands, if he bought his spouse seasons tickets as an anniversary gift, she would “be like ‘Are you kidding me?!’”
At the time of Marc’s first e-mail to Lurie, he’d been dealt the bad news of his mother’s diagnosis. Peritoneal cancer is rare, and then she was found to have malignant ascites, which Poulshock described as “like coffee grounds of cancer inside her peritoneum.” The peritoneum is the membrane that lines the abdominal cavity and covers most of the abdominal organs.
She was given about 20 weeks to live.
“I wanted to do something and I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head – my mother’s great love was this football team in Philadelphia and when I say she loved this team, I don’t think love is the proper word for it,” Poulshock said via phone. “It was something beyond that.”
Lucky for him and his extended family, Rose’s other kids and grandkids, the Eagles’ front office responded to an emotional, heartfelt voicemail Marc left.
“I left a lengthy, blabbering crying incoherent voicemail, and I remember hanging up the phone and saying to myself ‘I can’t believe I just left a voicemail for the CEO of the Eagles,” he said, but two hours later he got a call from Catherine Dunn in the ticketing office.
Over the summer they tried to come up with ways of surprising and showering Rose with Eagles love. On August 3, at the first public training day, Eagles president Don Smolenski made a moving, surprise tribute to Rose at a reception for season ticketholders.
“You should see my mother’s face light up – it is unbelievable,” he said of her reaction.
Cheerleaders came out and they posed with the wheelchair-bound superfan. They got onto the field and “[Safety] Malcolm Jenkins walks over to us,” he said. “She says ‘Welcome to the Eagles’ and now he’s having the best year of his career.”
It didn’t stop there. On August 30, Rose Poulshock passed. Everyone was at the Jersey Shore before her funeral. The following Tuesday after Labor Day, the Poulshocks were bewildered with a kind Eagles gesture.
“We walk into the funeral parlor and there was this beautiful, huge display of green and white roses with a card from the Philadelphia Eagles. It read ‘Please accept our condolences — we all lost a family member today,” Marc Poulshock recalled.
He and his family were bowled over, and he knew he had to do something to give back in a big way.
He wanted to find out who sent the roses, and he walked into the front office to speak to Dunn about how the roses made it to the Shore.
“I want to start today,” he told her. “Where is the Eagles Youth Partnership? I want to know about it now — who do I meet with? Where do I go?”
EYP Executive Director Sarah Martinez-Helfman was charmed by his story and thrilled that he and his family are partnering with the organization.
“I couldn’t be more grateful for them and for Marc, that they put out this challenge not to make their own donation but to galvanize Eagles fans around doing something powerfully good for this community and the kids in the community, she said.”
In short, the EYP aims to “level the playing field, to use football terms, especially kids facing long odds,” Martinez-Helfman added.
Their avenues are through their vision care and reading initiatives, plus a chess tournament in the spring and partnering with the Philadelphia School district to provide safe and healthy play spaces.
“Let’s say someone gives $15 — Marc’s family, Rosey’s family, will match that dollar for dollar and that’s up to $30 to put a pair of glasses on someone’s face,” she said. “$10 puts four brand new books in their hands. Often it’s the first book they’ve ever owned.”
Marc Poulschock offered a few different donation ideas, like $10,000 for every Jenkins interception. But when Martinez-Helfman called Marc to ask him to match up to $54,000, Poulschock didn’t hesitate with a firm yes.
“Look, Sarah, I don’t know what you’re going to ask, but I will tell you right now that the answer to your question is ‘Yes,” he recalled, hearing hesitance in her voice.
About to enter into its 20th year, the EYP began when Lurie and Christina Weiss-Lurie considered buying the team and recognized a fanatic fanbase as well as Philadelphia’s pockets of poverty.
“We have a platform to use the team as a force for social good, and the way that we want to do that is to bring hope and resources to the most disadvantaged kids,” Martinez-Helfman explained. “You pass the love of your team from generation to generation.”
And Marc hinted at it, too: “What I’m hoping for is that individuals can see the marketing that goes out there from the Eagles and let them donate $1.54, $10.54, anything. If they can put a 54 in it, it can be a little ‘Rosey, we know you’re there.’”
Staff Writer Bill Chenevert at bchenevert@southphillyreview.com or ext. 117.
177888921
177888771
