Positive Black Male News: Uptown After-School Program Serves up Squash and Education to Harlem students!
An uptown after-school program has students competing harder in the classroom and on the court — the squash court, that is. “StreetSquash” is serving up squash to Harlem middle and high school students. Keeping them active, it turns out, can also be a great hook to improve their academic game.
“The real goal is to make sure these kids get a good education,” says George Polsky, the StreetSquash founder.
Polsky started the program in 1999 as a way to use a sport virtually unknown among Harlem kids to improve their chances of graduating high school and getting into college. What started as 25 kids playing on a handful of borrowed courts has grown into 160-plus players in StreetSquash’s $9 million facility on W. 115th St. between Fifth and Lenox Aves.
“I think that it’s the community that we’ve created and the services we offer that has attracted all these kids,” Polsky says.
Danny Cabrera, a 17-year-old senior at Thurgood Marshall Academy, says he wasn’t the “squashhead” he is today when he joined the program seven years back.
Read the full story on BCG’s partner site The Black Man Can!
