Rockaway Beach, Queens – This past Friday, Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Rockaway Beach), facilitated and attended the ‘Together We Rise’ event hosted by the Far Rockaway Colts, a flag football team funded by the NYPD Neighborhood Community Schools Initiative (NCSI). The NCSI program works in conjunction with the NYPD and the NYC Department of Education (DOE) wherein DOE recommends students to work and be mentored by NYPD Officers. The program began three years ago in Pheffer Amato’s district and has been hugely successful in helping troubled students get on a better path both in school and in their social lives. The ‘Together We Rise’ event served as an opportunity for Rockaway’s youth and the office to come together to speak to one another and have a real discussion on how to move forward, together. Pheffer Amato attended the event and donated food.

“The NCSI program offers a tremendous resource to families and children within my district who are struggling, and I commend the NYPD for their work in strengthening community ties,” Pheffer Amato said. “Programs like this are so vital in fostering trust between our youngest members of society and the police and I am proud to support any opportunity to build those bridges especially at the ‘Together We Rise’ event this past week! I want to thank Detective Blanc, Sergeant Bowen, Lieutenant Moody, and all of the officers from the 101^st Precinct who volunteer their time to help these families.”