By Irwin Redlener
What happens when a small, bilingual Upper West Side public school accepts nearly 100 children who are among the new migrants now settled in New York City?Â
And what does this have to do with the legendary singer-songwriter Paul Simon, one of our most renowned UWS neighbors?
P.S. 163 on West 97th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues has welcomed newly arrived children with warm, open arms, absorbing them into the school’s academic and social community like old friends. I know because our grandson is in second grade there. (His class size rose from 12 students to 20 this year.)
In addition to the migrant children, in the 2022-23 school year, 52% of P.S. 163’s student body qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating economic need, according to Inside Schools. The same source reported that P.S. 163 students scored significantly higher than the citywide average on both the state’s math and reading exams.
One of the special attributes of P.S. 163 is the availability of an after-school program that our grandson enthusiastically attends, called WildArts, created by a young, professional artist named Joni Wildman. Because WildArts receives no city funding, the family of each participating child must come up with tuition for the year, to cover the program’s expenses.
Wildman is trying to find scholarships for some of the children in need, including migrant and local children. To do so, she has created a gala and auction.
What sets this auction apart is the support and generosity of Paul Simon and others who took up the cause. I know Paul through his previous philanthropic work. When I approached him about the WildArts auction, his immediate reaction was, “What can I do?”
What Paul did was donate a personally signed Fender guitar and his four Legend-section seats at Yankee Stadium, right next to the Yankee dugout, for Sunday, June 23.
Other items being auctioned off include: four front-row Father’s Day (June 16) tickets to the Mets game; a bottle of signature Pinot Grigio personally autographed by R&B legend Mary J. Blige; a private tour of a Broadway theater; family vacations, and more. All proceeds benefit the WildArts Scholarship Fund.
The auction will be held at the WildArts gala on June 8, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at All Angel’s Church on West 80th Street between Broadway and West End Avenue. Tickets are available HERE. If you can’t attend or don’t want to wait, the auction is live right now HERE.
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