Local Basketball Team Wins Gold at Special Olympics Tournament

A local basketball team called the “City Hawks” (also known as the “Unified Banner Team”) just won gold at the Special Olympic games held at Queens College in June. This comes just six months after a New York Edge Beacon Program floor hockey team picked up silver.

The team was formed thanks to New York Edge, an organization which is New York City’s “largest provider of school-based after school and summer programming” according to a New York Edge representative.

The basketball players were part of a specific program within New York Edge called the “Beacon Program” which “transforms its host school into a resource for the whole community by offering an integrated range of programming tailored to meet each individual community’s needs.” Beacon Program Director Darius Nazario said that the program “offers opportunities for all ages throughout the year, Monday through Saturday,” and that the program runs throughout the day from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

The Beacon Program operates out of City-As-School, a high school located at 16 Clarkson Street in Greenwich Village. The school was recently designated as a Special Olympics Unified Champion School by the New York City Chancellor’s Office, which recognizes schools that have a “deep, sustained commitment to creating an inclusive climate,” according to the representative.

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