CHRONICLING THE HOLOCAUST
Assemblymember Rory Lancman presented awards to students who have documented the stories of local Holocaust survivors, keeping their stories alive for future generations. The ceremony was held at the Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College, where the students presented their work.
Each student participating in the Holocaust awareness program conducted an in-depth interview of a specific survivor. The work of documenting survivors’ stories becomes more important every year as the community of Holocaust survivors continues to shrink.
“One of the most important things we can do to prevent another Holocaust is to make sure the stories of those who have survived are not forgotten,” Lancman said.
According to its mission, the project goes beyond just preserving the stories of the Holocaust. It also provides students with lessons in dealing with hate crimes and civic responsibility.
“These students have done tremendous and important work,” Lancman said. “We have to ensure that first-hand accounts of the horrors of the Holocaust are documented today so they cannot be forgotten or contradicted in the future.”
Dr. Arthur Flug, who has led the project for the past seven years at the Kupferberg Center, said that the work done by the students would become part of their generation’s commitment to social justice.
The following students received awards at the event:
Richard Flores
Jasmine Fludd
Akeem Dixon
Katherine Avalos
Danielle Del Priore
Sylvia Uzcha
Mauricio Moreno
David Coba
Joshua Oladiti
Yi Qiang Wang
Antoinette Malcolmn
SCHOLARSHIP
Four teens from New York are among 12 legally blind, college-bound high school seniors to receive scholarships from The Jewish Guild for the Blind (The Guild). Among them are Daniel James Solomon of Belle Harbor, a student at Stuyvesant High School who has been awarded a scholarship of $10,000. The GuildScholar Program scholarships are awarded prior to the academic year that begins September 2012. The recipients are currently enrolled in high schools in the states of Florida, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia. The GuildScholar Program was created, in part, through a generous grant from the Jeannette A. Klarenmeyer Trust.
A teacher of one of the winners is also being acknowledged for his role in encouraging and bringing out the best in his student. Each applicant was asked to write an essay about a teacher whose encouragement made a great difference in their lives. The teacher chosen from among the applicants’ essays will receive a prize of $5,000.
“We’re mindful of the often unexpectedly large sums of money needed to accomplish a successful transition from high school to a college or university, and we think that this scholarship money can be put to excellent use during this phase,” said Alan R. Morse, JD, PhD, President and CEO of The Guild. “At The Guild, we are committed to working toward a more inclusive society. The GuildScholar program will help assure that more blind students are able to enroll in colleges or universities that might otherwise be beyond their reach financially,” Dr. Morse continued. “We’re not concerned with their fields of study, but we are eager to help in the education of this country’s next generation of leaders, a group that must include persons with vision impairment,” he concluded.
The 12 winners were chosen after a rigorous application process that included criteria such as academic excellence, community involvement, legal blindness, financial need and U.S. citizenship.
For information on the GuildScholar Program’s scholarships for the 2013 academic year, contact Gordon Rovins at 212-769-7801 or e-mail guildscholar@jgb.org.
LOTTO WINNERS
The New York Lottery has announced the names of area Lottery players who claimed a winning ticket from one of the Lottery’s live drawings between December 25 and December 31, 2011. The following winners each received a cash prize valued at $10,000 or more.
*Jefferson Paulino of Bayside who won $29,206 on the Take Five drawing of December 24.
*Tarun Chillara of Floral Park who won $22,816 on the Take Five drawing of November 28.
*Concepcion Padilla of Jamaica who won $10,000 on the Win 4 drawing of December 21.
*Andrzej Wlodarski of Ridgewood who won $10,000 on the Mega Millions drawing of December 23.
*Ileana Sanchez of Ozone Park who won $40,000 on the Mega Millions drawing of December 23.
*Peter Chiu of Elmhurst who won $10,003 on the Mega Millions drawing of December 13.
*Stanley Kwiatkowski of Rockaway Point who won $250,150 on the Mega Millions drawing of December 23.
Alexander Akujuo of Rosedale who won $12,567 on the Take Five drawing of December 20.
APPOINTMENTS
The North Shore-LIJ Health System has announced the appointment of Kevin M. McGeachy, FACHE, as executive director at the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center (CCMC) of New York. He succeeds Arthur Klein, MD, who continues as the health system’s senior vice president of children’s services, but is also now serving as North Shore-LIJ’s western regional executive director, a position in which he has oversight of all health system facilities in western Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island.
For the past two years, McGeachy has served as CCMC’s deputy executive director. Before joining CCMC, he was associate executive director at three different North Shore-LIJ hospitals: at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset from 2005 to 2009, LIJ Medical Center from 2004 to 2005, and Forest Hills Hospital from 2001 to 2004. He began his career at the North Shore-LIJ Health System in 1998 as part of an internal consulting group charged with examining integration opportunities among the various entities of the health system.
Before joining the health system, McGeachy served as the director of health policy for the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council, an advocacy group representing hospitals on Long Island. He began his career at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan in a variety of positions within the Division of Ambulatory Care. He holds an MBA from Baruch College/Mount Sinai School of Medicine and received his bachelor’s degree from the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University program in health administration. He is also a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Dr. Klein joined North Shore-LIJ and CCMC in March 2009. In his new role as regional executive director, he will have administrative oversight of Lenox Hill Hospital, the Manhattan Eye Ear and Throat Institute, Staten Island University Hospital’s North and South Sites and the proposed Center for Comprehensive Care in Lower Manhattan. He will also focus on building physician partnerships and looking for new opportunities for growth and investment.
Before joining North Shore-LIJ, Klein was senior vice president and chief physician officer at Lifespan Corporation in Providence, RI, where he was also the associate dean for strategy and special projects at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He served previously as executive vice president and chief operating officer at the New York Presbyterian Healthcare System, and as executive vice chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, where he completed his residency and fellowship in pediatric cardiology. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Cardiology and has written and presented extensively on pediatric cardiology. He received his medical degree from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center and a bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA.
Kevin M. McGeachy (left), FACHE, has been appointed executive director at the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center. He succeeds Arthur Klein, MD, (right) who continues as senior vice president of children’s services.
