The Near West Side Community Development Corporation (Near West Side CDC) named three winners of its third annual West Haven Safe Summer Basketball League Championship Tournament, held recently at Malcom X College.

Crane Future, comprised of Crane Tech High School incoming freshmen, Bogan fromBogan High School, and the Village, hailing from Roosevelt Square, won the elementary, high school, and young adult divisions, respectively.

Players Marlon Jones, Stanley Martin, and Tony Bennett received awards in honor of three Chicagoans slain by gun violence. Jones won in honor of Blair Holt, Martin received the Thomas Wortham IV award, and Bennett received the Thor Sodenberg award.

Chicago police officers Sodenberg, who was popular in the community and trained new recruits, and Wortham, who worked to reclaim parks from gangs, were murdered within weeks of each other earlier this year. Holt was a 16-year-old student gunned down on a Chicago Transit Authority bus while protecting a friend.

With 240 participants throughout the summer ranging in age from elementary school through young adult, and an estimated 250 spectators per game, the league
has been a success.

“Since the program began in 2008, public violence has decreased 64.4% in our area,” said Earnest Gates of theNearWest Side CDC.

The organization founded the league in 2008 as a part of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s (LISC/Chicago) New Communities Program(NCP).

For information, call (312) 822-0505.