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The NYPD brought dozens of hearing and visually impaired teens to the New Years Eve ball drop in Times Square to help them “live out their dream,” police and participants said Thursday.
Roughly 50 of the young people, most in their teens and early 20s, were given access to the thrilling festivities during the department’s fourth annual Disability Engagement Event just after midnight Thursday.
“What this means to the deaf community is very significant,” said David Patrick Perez, 22, who is deaf. “It allows us to be a part of something….it gives us something to look forward to.”
“It really does make an impact, because it gives us the access, the ability to be here in person, to witness something like the ball drop,” he said.
Program participants range in age from 8 to 22 years old, are from all five boroughs and are connected with the Lexington School for the Deaf or St. Joseph’s School for the Deaf, NYPD Assistant Commissioner of Community Affairs Alden Foster said. Many are also from low-income families.
“To create the opportunity for a young person that is about to lose their vision, to live out a dream, to see the ball up-close is really special,” Foster told The Post Tuesday.
“It really creates an opportunity for young kids that also are from low income communities around the city.”
The program also brings hearing and visually impaired kids and teens to the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lighting, he said.
“To have a kids’ parent come up to you and say, ‘Hey, you know, my kid’s been deaf for all his life, and this is just an experience of a lifetime’ ….. that’s special,” Foster said.
“This work would not be able to be successful as it is if it wasn’t for the Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s support in this endeavor,” he added.
English (US)