 That was loud. My name is Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright and I am here to welcome you to Saturday night. I'm so excited, I'm dropping the stuff. We are gonna see some serious basketball here. First of all, I just wanna say it is so happy to see all of these beautiful young people. Let's give them a clap up. Yeah, Summer is here, looking Jaden. Jaden, give her a Jade, that's right. He's good, you gotta watch him. But he helped me learn how to make a basket today. I feel very accomplished. So that's what Saturday night lights is all about. Really providing an incredible experience for our young people in partnership with our NYPD officers who are there to really be partners and mentors and supporters. DYCD is an amazing organization that helps connect them to community-based organizations. This is truly, truly an amazing program that has been in existence and we're so happy to launch it today and to continue the work going forward. First up, I wanna introduce our DYCD Commissioner, Keith Howard, who told me. No problem with that, okay? I am so glad to be back. I am from the Bronx, okay? That's right, wrapping the Bronx, there you go. Okay, grew up, 149th Street, Walton Avenue, moved over to Cedric Avenue, 1849, played in Roberto Clemente State Park, Schooly Art Legend, act somebody, okay? This is one of our biggest programs, and it just energize me as the deputy mayor stated just to be here with the young people. I actually played here when PAL had their league. Okay, coach, I don't know if they still have it, but I used to play in this very building. So I know about the investment that's needed in young people. I know that they need a safe haven to be able to come through. And if you go upstairs, and I hope you do, go upstairs to the game room, which I just went up there, an amazing activity up there. So I think that we should continue to invest in these type of programs. We need to expand beyond what we're currently doing, okay? And I know that we're getting to that, but I also wanna thank our partners in city government for making this happen, you know? So let's play some ball afterwards. Okay, I know the mayor's gonna be playing with you. I'm gonna try, but my knees and my back, you know? It's all good. But okay, thank you, Deputy Mayor. Already making excuses, already making excuses. Mm, I don't know. All right, I do have to give a shout out and acknowledge that I am from the Boogie Down as well. South, South Bronx. And want to introduce our next speaker, our very own Bronx District Attorney, Darcelle Clark. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Wright. Good afternoon, everyone. It is such a great thing to see these young people here today. I hope you all are gonna enjoy yourselves. Because unfortunately, when I have to see people, sometimes it's at their worst time. And I am seeing such devastation with our young people. We're losing a generation of young people to gun violence in this borough and in this city. And we have to do more to prevent that from happening. And one of the ways that we're doing this is with Saturday Night Lights. So I'm so happy to partner with all the other partners in government to get this work done. Because it's important that the community see the police and the positive relationships they can have with the police, with the Department of Education, with DY, CD, all of us working together with the elected officials here, the borough president. All of us care so much about young people. We go to meetings all the time hearing about, we need this for our young people, we need that. But we never see the young people themselves to hear from them what they want. So this is something that they wanted. This is something that we have. I started, when I started out as DA, there were no Saturday Night Lights gyms in the Bronx at all. Then we started with two. This is one of the first here at the PAL and another one in the South Bronx at the soccer. Now we have 25 and it's my hope that we're gonna be announcing more. All right? So the more we can do to prevent young people from getting in trouble, the better the future is for them. So I'm excited to be here. I'm happy to be a part of this partnership. My community affairs office is here as well. And we're just gonna continue to do all that we can to make the Bronx safe for young people like you. So enjoy. Thank you so much, District Attorney Clark. And next up is the president of the Bronx. Where is she? There she is, Vanessa Gibson. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Webster PAL. I wanna thank Carlos Velasquez, our executive director and the entire team at the PAL. I am so excited to be here. I'm excited to be the Bronx Borough President seven months in and I'm even more excited about what this administration is doing to advance Saturday night lights. I remember when we rolled out this program last year during my time in the New York City Council. And we believed in the concept of what Saturday night lights is all about. Opening our school buildings, our community centers, making sure that Saturday evenings, our young people have recreation, have a safe space, a haven of opportunity, of basketball, of baseball, of soccer, of karate. And that's what Saturday night lights is all about. And so, yes, as the DA said, we started with two sites and we went to 25 and we will continue to grow and grow. There are over 100 sites in the city of New York. All, we are a five borough city. And I am grateful that we are here in the Bronx announcing the Saturday night lights initiative because the Bronx needs programs like this. These programs keep our kids safe. They keep them in a place of comfort, a level of opportunity. This is truly a beacon of hope and a beacon of recreation for our young generation of leaders. And if we do anything as elected officials, as nonprofit leaders, we have to make sure that our young people know that their futures are bright, that your block never blocks your blessing. No matter what zip code you live in in the Bronx or the city of New York, we care about you. We want to invest in your future. And that is what Saturday night lights is all about. So I am grateful as the borough president to work with Mayor Eric Adams, to work with Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, our school's chancellor, David Banks. I'm excited to work with NYPD with our commissioner, DYCD, as well as our district attorney because at the end of the day, this is about making sure that our next generation of leaders has every opportunity that they rightfully deserve. So whether you play basketball, you play baseball, you play soccer, karate, it doesn't matter. You have a place right in your own community. So as we look to expand Saturday night lights and grow this important program, we're going to make sure that neighborhoods that don't have these programs actually have it. And in addition, we recognize the value of our compass and sonic and cornerstone programs, the beacon programs that we all grew up on. This is a lifeline for young people. I can't tell you how excited I am because when we invest in our young people, we are investing in their future. So I want to say thank you to our mayor and the entire administration for not just talking the talk, but walking the walk, not just being about it, but showing the Bronx, showing the Bronx and the city of New York that we care about our young people. They are the next generation of leaders. And no matter what we do, everything, every decision we make is about investing in their future. So to all the young people, enjoy Saturday night lights. Find out about sites in your community. Look us out. Take advantage of these programs to make sure that your children are involved in Saturday night lights. Thank you so much, Mayor Adams. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. We look forward to working with you. Thank you so much, Mayor President Vanessa Gibson. We are so pleased to have the partnership of all of our elected officials. And I'd like to next introduce council member Oswald Feliz. All right. Thank you so much. Saludos. I'm honored and privileged to join all of you, to join our elected officials, to join our police commissioner, and also to join all of our future basketball stars. Today, to celebrate this incredibly successful program, a program that has been making a difference in every single corner of our city. You know, here in the Bronx, we face many challenges, as it was mentioned, including on the area of opportunity for our children, also on the area of health. We've been ranking last for far too long, and also on the issue of safety. And those three items are directly tackled by this Saturday night lights program, giving our young kids an opportunity to learn a new sport during the summer and also every single week of the year, but also giving them the opportunity to stay healthy, to stay healthy in every single way, including physically healthy, but also mentally and also emotionally. And also safety. We can resolve the public safety issue by giving the opportunity to our children, the opportunity that they need, and also the opportunity that they deserve. This is an incredibly successful program. It's making a big difference in every single corner of our city, and I'm incredibly thankful to celebrate it today. And also we're gonna continue expanding it so that it could continue to reach more New Yorkers and more Bronxites. And briefly in Spanish, It's an honor and privilege to be here with all of you celebrating this program. Here in the Bronx, we've had a lot of difficulties on the issue of health, on the issue of security, and also the opportunity for our youth. And this program, those are problems that this program helps to solve, giving it the opportunity to our young people so that they can learn a new sport, stay busy, and also stay learning and meeting new friends and friends. So really honor and privilege. Thank you all for making this program possible. And I look very forward to seeing all of you in the NBA. Very, and thank you so much. Thank you so much, Council Member. And now I'd like to bring up the ED of the PAL, Carlos Velasquez. There he is, who makes it all happen, yeah. Thank you. I just wanna welcome everyone to our Webster PAL. We really appreciate you coming through. I'm a big fan of SNL. I wanna thank the young people for coming out. But SNL is just more than a basketball program. SNL is about the connection between young people, between caring adults. SNL is a program where you, it continues outside of Saturday nights. Tell your story about, you know, we have Coach Davis here. Coach Davis goes across the Bronx looking for young people to support. Coach Davis, make sure that young people are here and feel safe. And you see it by their commitment, day in and day out. It's about the connection with NYPD, where a young person could feel comfortable speaking to an officer outside of our space. So we applaud the work that everyone has done, DYCD, NYPD, the DA's office, law enforcement, Mayor Adams to continue this program and to continue giving resources. We applaud you young people for showing that it matters by coming out, applaud the coaches and the NYPD officers and everyone who support. So again, welcome to our Webster PAL and we hope this program continues and continues to grow. Thank you so much. Next up, we have our assembly member, Yodelka, Tobacco. I'm sure I did that. You said it right. Hello, hello. There you go. Tenemos los muchachos en español. Que bueno, I am assembly member Yodelka Tapia. And for me, it's a real, I mean, dream come true to see our children on a Saturday afternoon, just getting ready to play basketball. Especially here in the Bronx that you know, the safety in our community is a little bit hard. And many of me as a parent, don't want to get my children, my grandchildren out in the streets. But this program is changing everything in the way that we actually are allowing our children to come out, because I mean, we know that they're gonna be safe at the PAL, especially on Saturdays, where our NYPD is taking care of all of them and making sure that they are gonna come back home safe. For us, electric officials that we get the complaints and we know and we see our streets, we know how important this is for our communities and to bring again the confidence, not only in our NYPD, but in the city of New York, I mean, to bringing the safety that we need in our community. In Espanol, I'm Yodelka Tapia and I'm delighted to be here today, celebrating a Saturday, seeing all these dozens of children here who are gonna play basketball and it can be what they want in their lives when they grow up. And for us, specifically in the Bronx, that we have the safety so compromised in the last two years, this is a great step forward so that parents can feel safe and happy that their children, when they come out to the PAL, they're being careful and they're gonna come back home safe and safe and well when they come back. So thank you for me, it's an honor. I wanna thank all the partnership that we're doing with the mayor of New York that has put his word on the line when he said that he was gonna bring back the safety to our communities and we are here partnering with him because I mean, we believe that we actually can do it. Thank you to the Bronx Board of President for her efforts every single day to the commissioner for the NYPD because I know how hard she's working to make sure that our communities are safe and to our elected officials and our DOE chancellor that is here too. Thank you, thank you for everything and all the efforts. I think I mean that Saturday night life is a game changer and we are gonna see it every Saturday when we see our community. Thank you again. Thank you so much, thank you so much. And for the young people, I want you, you've seen all these very fancy people with all their fancy titles, president of the borough, assembly, city council, the DA and I want you to know that everybody that you've seen comes from communities like this. We come from this community and communities like this. So I hope that makes you appreciate that there is nothing that you cannot do. You can be anything or anybody you wanna be. You can even be the police commissioner of the New York police department. So that's our next speaker, commissioner Kisha Su. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. This is very exciting to be here. This is so important and I have to say I'm gonna echo some of the things people said here but I'll be brief because I think I know you wanna play so I won't talk with so much. I'm not gonna embarrass myself by trying to play with you as well. But the NYPD always steps forward to look out for our youth, to have initiatives and programs and options to keep them safe. And programs like Saturday Night Lights, it's just one thing that we do but there is so much more that we can do for our youth. We have to continue to invest in our people and this type of program should be where we interact with the NYPD, where you see an officer and play with an officer and talk to an officer. So you see that we are all part of the same community that we are here together and we will never stop that. We will always have our mentors, our coaches, our partners. I wanna thank Mayor Adams, Commissioner Howard and we have our coaches, Deputy Mayor Wright, we have our DAs, we have elected officials. It shows the whole of government, the whole of the city approach we have to taking care of our youth. This holistic atmosphere we want to create to show you that we are here for you and that you can indeed be anything that you want to be in this city and beyond and we're always gonna be here for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Sewell. And it absolutely takes a village and I'm so grateful for the NYPD. One of the officers just showed me how to make a shot. Officer, yeah, thank you, I made a basket earlier and it does take a village what you've heard and what we absolutely appreciate is that this summer was so important coming out of COVID-19. This summer was so important just what we've been through and what we've been faced with. And Mayor Eric Adams said that this is something we're gonna double down on. This is something we're gonna lean all the way into because it works and it's valuable and important. So next up, our Mayor Eric Adams. Thank you, thank you, Deputy Mayor, Police Commissioner and my partners in the Bronx. We spend so much time in the Bronx in seven and six months and a few days because we believe that for so many years the Bronx has been ignored, has not received the support that they deserve. And so our Bronx BP, Vanessa Gibson, we're just really proud of what you're doing here and our amazing Councilmen, you have been as well, you have been just on the grind, our District Attorney, our Assemblywoman, Tapia, D.A. Clock, the entire team. So we just wanna thank you. This is an investment. And we have been rolling out this throughout the entire week. You have saw what we were doing. It's about our scholars and making sure that they give every opportunity that they deserve. And I know all the speakers already touched on it, but when you look at the summer horizon, when you look at Saturday night lights, look at what we're doing around childcare, we are really going after the foundational issues that is really holding our young people back. And as we do the intervention of public safety, we need to do the prevention because if they can bounce a ball on a basketball court, they can wear a black robe on the Supreme Court. So that is why we're here. That is why we're making these connections. That is why we're doing what we're doing. So I wanna thank all of you for coming out today. It shows that you have the high end of government, the high end of those who are making these decisions. And I just wanted to say thank you. And thank you to the team. And some of the officers who are here, if you wanna build bridges, pass a ball, engage in something, sports really gives us a way of connecting with each other and realize that we're the same people wanting the same thing. So thanks so much. Let's play ball.