New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner had long been a supporter for the New York Police Department. Though Steinbrenner died in 2010, his appreciation and support for the children of slain officers lives on.
via New York Daily News:
For 32 years, Steinbrenner’s Yankee Silver Shield Foundation has provided for the education of the children of New York City police officers, firemen and Port Authority employees who died in the line of duty, and will do so for the family of NYPD officer Rafael Ramos, gunned down Saturday along with his partner, Wenjian Liu.
The foundation will pay for the education of Ramos’ son, 13-year-old Jaden, and another son who is in college.
Liu, who was recently married, had no children.
Steinbrenner started his foundation in 1982 after seeing a news account of four children flanking their mother and folding an American flag at the funeral of their father, an NYPD officer who had been killed in the line of duty.
“Who’s going to take care of these kids,” Steinbrenner asked his friend, former Olympian Jim Fuchs, who would run the foundation until his death, also in 2010. “We are.”
The foundation, now run by Fuchs’ daughter Casey, has paid for the educations of thousands of children of fallen NYPD, FDNY, state police and Port Authority workers in the tri-state area, as well as 700 children who lost a parent in the terrorists attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
