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Yankees will pay for education of slain NYPD officer's children
Fair or not, the New York Yankees have a reputation for being baseball's "evil empire." Well, here's something that's certainly not evil: The Yankees are paying for the education of slain New York police officer Rafael Ramos' two children.
Ramos was one of the two NYPD officers shot and killed Saturday by a gunman who ambushed the two officers then later killed himself. The Yankees, through their Silver Shield Foundation, will pay for the education of Ramos' two children. He left behind a college-aged son and a 13-year-old named Jaden, who gained attention for mourning his father on Facebook.
The other officer killed, Wenjian Liu, didn't have children, or else the Silver Shield Foundation would have helped them too. The foundation has been doing this kind of work since 1982, when it was founded by ex-Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.
According to the New York Daily News, this is how Steinbrenner — who died in 2010 — was inspired to begin the Silver Shield Foundation:
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."
Now, the foundation pays for education costs of children of police officers and firefighters who've died in the line of duty, including NYPD, New York Fire Department, the New York port authority, the state police in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and others.
The foundation explains its main role thusly:
The Silver Shield Foundation sets aside an education fund for each surviving child of police officers and firefighters. A diverse and flexible program aimed at meeting a family's specific needs, it helps with tuition payments for prep school, college and university undergraduate and graduate school, and vocational and technical school.
It also offers tutoring and college prep services, bereavement counseling and will help spouses seek their education.
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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
