2020 was a year full of undeniable challenges and changes. For Rising Stars Youth Foundation, this meant reinventing a 40-year model to meet both. Here, we asked Rising Stars founder and president Paul Savramis what 2020 was like for the organization and how it was actually able to expand through a crisis.
Q: The pandemic affected everyone and made survival difficult for many sports-based programs. How did you navigate around the fact that basketball was banned in New York?
Paul Savramis: We utilized learning pods. This was a new direction, and we were able to use new programming to better reach our families. The learning pod program launched back in the fall and offered supplemental academic support along with social justice education to many of our youth. Students also had access to a book club to enhance literacy. We continue to use basketball as a motivation, and from September through December, we reached 70 student-athletes from low to middle-income backgrounds.