Sophie Gerson Healthy Youth

SGHY provides a range of sport, dance and science opportunities so students can stay active in the ways which most appeal to them. NYC public middle schools reel from years of budget cuts to athletics and the arts. The results have been epidemic heath issues, including obesity and diabetes, and equally epidemic social problems including bullying and low self-esteem. Athletics and the arts are extr

emely effective in preventing those outcomes. Our organization’s model is unique, efficient, and effective in three major respects. First, we listen to the teachers and principals. We provide activities their students would otherwise lack in keeping with the priorities the educators identify. Second, we do not run any program. We do not reinvent the wheel. Rather, we identify and vet the best providers in their particular fields. We provide the needed equipment and facilities and the all-important funding. Third, SGHY offers summer camp scholarships, to both sleep away and day camps, to students whose families cannot afford it. For many of the students we sponsor it is their first time out-of-town, first time in a country setting, first time swimming or boating or interacting with a horse and other parts of nature.