Long Island Nets honored for social responsibility
The Long Island Nets have received the NBA G League Social Responsibility/Youth Basketball Program Award for achieving excellence in community outreach and youth basketball initiatives for the 2019-20 season.
The Long Island Nets were one of three out of 28 G League teams honored with the award, along with the Salt Lake City Stars and Santa Cruz Warriors.
The Nets launched a multi-faceted social responsibility platform this season and were recognized by the league for both their NextGen Series presented by the Hospital for Special Surgery and their Read to Achieve assemblies for local elementary schools and students.
The NextGen Series included the Long Island Nets Basketball Academy, which hosted free monthly clinics for children in the Long Island community. The Nets also held a Youth Combine that allowed children ages 10 to 13 the opportunity to have their basketball skills measured by professional instructors, including the Long Island Nets head strength and conditioning coach Rahsaan Robinson.
The Nets also made a commitment to focus on youth literacy on Long Island. They hosted Read to Achieve assemblies at 18 local schools for nearly 4,700 elementary school students to get them excited about reading. In addition, the Nets partnered with the Book Fairies, a nonprofit that collects reading materials for people in-need throughout New York to help foster literacy and academic success, provide a respite from personal struggles and nurture a love of reading across all age groups. As part of this partnership, the Nets donated more than $7,000 to the organization.
“We are committed to using our platform and resources to create programs and work with organizations that directly impact and better our Long Island community,” Alton Byrd, vice president of business operations for the Long Island Nets, said in a team statement. “We are honored to be recognized as leaders in this space by our colleagues throughout the league, and will continue our focus on positively impacting and improving the communities right in our backyard.”
