Isles legend honored by Viscardi

Continued from Page 1 the most prominent schools serving medically fragile students and provides them with a rigorous and inclusive education.

The school also provides programs such as school-to-work transition services, vocational training and job placement, digital accessibility services and workforce diversifcation assistance to children, adolescents and adults with disabilities and businesses.

Celebrity Sports Night is a key fundraising event that raises the profle of the school’s “lifechanging mission on behalf of individuals with disabilities and their families that we serve” to the community, Rosa said.

The fundraising from the event is to support the operation of the school’s essential programs, including innovative projects that “are designed to change the paradigm for access and opportunities for people with disability,” Rosa said.

“Key fundraisers like Celebrity Sports Night provide us with the capacity to create opportunities for individuals with disabilities and their families to empower themselves,” Rosa said.

He said the school conducts a series of fundraising events, with Celebrity Sports Night among the most meaningful.

The event included a cocktail reception where guests mingled with various sports legends which also included Olympic fgure skater, Emily Hughes and former New York Jets Wesley Walker and John Nitti.

The event also included a silent and live auction, dinner and an award ceremony.

Seniors on the Viscardi wheelchair basketball team were awarded with medals from the New York Islanders players.

Viscardi has been partners with the New York Islanders for 47 years, fostering a relationship with the school and students through wheelchair hockey games over the decades.

“They know our mission from the inside out,” Rosa said. “It was really a thrill to be able to honor them for their decades-long commitment to Viscardi’s mission.”

The Viscardi Center awarded in return Nys- trom with a Lifetime Achievement Award and CEO of Oak View Group Tim Leiweke with the Corporate Leadership Award. Steph Roach, the world’s frst CrossFit Level 2 Trainer with Cerebral Palsy and former student at the Henry Viscardi School, was awarded the Roy Campanella Award.

Kim Brussell, senior vice president for public afairs and marketing, said the event was also an opportunity for the school and its students to display their diverse programming, including students from their culinary training program preparing and serving a variety of appetizers to guests.

Students singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” at the celebrity Sports Night fundraiser. (Photo courtesy of the Henry Viscardi School)

Rosa said it was a wonderful gathering of the school’s key partners and Henry Viscardi students and their families, with palpable enthusiasm in the room.

“It’s a really meaningful opportunity to gather our communities and our families together in