Jamie Costello, student at Hendrick Hudson High School, was honored for her Community Service.
Jamie is a past Co-President of the Hendrick Hudson Leos Club (part of the Hendrick Hudson Lions Club). She was a founding member of the Leos club which began in 2007. Since that time, she served as an officer in almost every position and has donated over 400 hours of community service in the past 5 years including midnight run's to feed the homeless in NYC, work with Guiding Eyes for the Blind, participated in multiple fundraisers to help cancer related causes, and has donated her time down in breezy point for hurricane sandy relief.
Jamie's dedication to helping others is evident in so many ways, and the club is very proud of her.
Below is the official Press Release from the County Executive's office:
Ten Westchester high school seniors, who have shown exceptional commitment to their local communities of Bronxville, Dobbs Ferry, Hawthorne, Mount Vernon, Scarsdale, Verplanck, West Harrison and Yorktown Heights, have been selected as recipients of the Westchester County Youth Board's 2012 Milly Kibrick Youth Service Awards, County Executive Robert P. Astorino announced.
The 10 were honored at a dinner on Oct. 17. The Milly Kibrick Youth Service Awards are given in memory of Milly Kibrick, a prominent county social worker and youth activist, who dedicated her life to helping underprivileged children.
During her career and in retirement, she was the quintessential social worker, social entrepreneur, volunteer and political activist, pursuing social and economic justice for children of all ages.
"Milly selflessly devoted her life to helping underprivileged children and was the driving force in many campaigns for the youth of Westchester County. She made a lasting impact on our community," said Astorino. "The honorees for the 2012 Milly Kibrick Service Awards emulate Milly's giving spirit. Their work in their communities has touched the lives of many individuals. At a young age they have managed to accomplish great things."
The aim of the Youth Board's awards program is to recognize high school seniors of the Class of 2013 who have been involved in building a flourishing, strong and compassionate community through individual efforts and actions.
The Westchester County Youth Board Honorees for the 2012 Youth Recognition Awards are:
• Amanda Austi lives in Bronxville and attends Bronxville High School. Amanda founded the Bronxville High School’s ‘Student-Run Tutoring’ program during her junior year, collecting a database of eligible upperclassmen, with the qualifications for tutoring specific courses. As manager, she matches students in need of assistance with upperclassmen and is also a part of the database as a tutor in Biology and Art History. Amanda is part of the ‘Freshmen Transition’ program, a group of upperclassmen who mentor freshmen during their first year of high school to ensure their transition runs smoothly. Amanda is also a member of the ‘Model United Nations Club’, the ‘Young Republicans Club’, a writer for the school newspaper, and secretary of her class in the Student Faculty Legislature.
Outside of the classroom, Amanda is a nationally ranked tennis player. She is captain of her school’s varsity tennis team, and a member of the school’s ‘Athletic Council’. Amanda teamed up with an organization called ‘Right To Play’ that uses sport as a tool for development for children in some of the most unfortunate areas in the world. Through games and sports, ‘Right To Play’ helps create social change in communities affected by war, poverty and disease. She initiated their first tennis curriculum at an all-girl orphanage in Tanzania, Africa, called JBFC and collected donated equipment such as shoes, racquets, and tennis balls, and spent last summer implementing the program at the orphanage where she established numerous relationships.
• Fatima Boozarjomehri lives in Dobbs Ferry and attends Dobbs Ferry High School.
During seventh grade she joined a program in her school called ‘Peer Tutoring’. She taught youth her age and as a result discovered that she enjoyed teaching, which led her to teaching foreign students at the Cabrini Immigrant Center.
By ninth grade, Fatima began connecting with different worldwide orphan support projects, and also participates in school clubs that support the cause to help humankind and the environment like Habitat for Humanity and Green Club.
• Jaclyn Carlin lives in Scarsdale and attends Scarsdale High School.
Jaclyn has been volunteering at the ‘Amazing Afternoons Afterschool’ program at Edward Williams Elementary School in Mount Vernon for six years. This program serves an at-risk community where many kids live below the poverty level and some are homeless. Jaclyn, along with her sister, taught dance and mentored the same group of girls until they graduated from elementary school.
She has been an active member in the ‘Free the Children’ club at Scarsdale High School and is currently holds the position of president. This international organization builds schools, hospitals, and medical centers in developing countries. With the club, she has organized collections for local food pantries and coordinated fundraisers including tag sales, gift wrapping, and silent auctions, which have raised money for the neediest communities throughout the world. This past year she started a ‘Free the Children’ club at the ‘Amazing Afternoons Afterschool’ program. She taught approximately 15 kids about world issues such as hunger, poverty, and disease. They organized a fundraiser selling scarves crocheted by one of their teachers and raised money for alternate income in Sierra Leone.
• Jamie Costello lives in Verplanck and attends Hendrick Hudson High School. She is a varsity cheerleader and a member of ‘High Schools Against Cancer’ (HSAC).
She was a charter member of her towns ‘LEO’ club. This is a community service group run by students to give back to their community. Jamie has held every position in the club and has participated in events such as the Midnight Run, SPARC (Special Program and Resource Connection), Guiding Eyes for the Blind, visiting orphanages and participating in various cancer walks. Another event that Jamie is involved with is her town’s annual ‘Stay-Awake-A-Thon’. This year she took part in running this event as the president of the Leos club. The event was started in 2007 and has raised over $250,000 for various cancer organizations. Through her own fund raising efforts, Jamie has raised over $8,000.
• Lauren Gorstein lives in Yorktown Heights and attends Yorktown High School. She is a member of the National Honor Society, Science Olympiad team, and plays varsity softball. Lauren has participated in a club called ‘Soupstone’, Yorktown High School’s art and literary magazine dedicated to showcasing the many talented artists and writers attending her school.
Lauren has volunteered through her family’s work with Guiding Eyes for the Blind and Girl Scouts where she earned her bronze, silver, and gold awards. Her topic for the gold award was to raise awareness about the issues of domestic and teen dating violence. Lauren combined her passion for softball and the need for this awareness into a project creating her Girl Scout Gold Award, ‘Strikeout Domestic Violence’. This sixty hour project was designed to reach different age groups, have a legacy component, and serve a need in the community. Lauren worked with Ann Ellsworth and Megan McCarthy, from the Putnam/Northern Westchester Women’s Resource Center, interviewing them about domestic and teen dating violence, put the interview onto a DVD and gave copies to the health teachers at her high school so they may share it with students.
• Robert Hutnik lives in Hawthorne and attends Westlake High School. Over the past four years, he has been involved in various volunteer efforts in his school and community. During the school year, Robert is a member of the Principal’s Advisory Board, a group of students who present their views on school issues and helps to present policies to improve Westlake High School and the Mount Pleasant School District. He is also a member of the ‘Environmental’ club, working to beautify the school and increase school-wide recycling to preserve the environment, and a member of the ‘Peer Advice and Leadership Service’ club, which introduces incoming ninth graders to high school classes and assists them in the transition to high school.
Robert is an active member of the Emergency Medical System at Valhalla Volunteer Ambulance Corps. As the captain of the Jr. Corps, a group for 16 and 17 year old students interested in the medical field, he organizes meetings, trainings, fund drives, and events for the members of the Corps and Mount Pleasant community. Recently he attained certification as a New York State Certified First Responder, and plans to complete his Emergency Medical Technician certification next year. Since ninth grade, Robert has volunteered at the Chabad Hebrew School in Dobbs Ferry, where he is a Hebrew reading teacher and classroom aide. He strives to instill a sense of pride in one’s culture and good morals and values to the children in hopes of nurturing responsible and caring people.
• Jacob Lerner lives in West Harrison and attends Harrison High School. Jacob is the President of his temple’s ‘Youth Group’ and oversees all of the programs they work with such as the ‘Kids Kloset’ (of which he is chairman), ‘AFYA’, ‘Breast Cancer Walk’ and ‘Midnight Run’. He is also a peer leader, where he has had specific training in working with adolescent teens and creating activities to help teens learn about making good choices in life and their religion.
Jacob is the president of the ‘Youth Volunteers of Harrison’. He also volunteers at the Port Chester Carver Center, an after school organization that provides mentors and tutors for Port Chester youth, and created clothing drives for both the ‘Midnight Run’, and a clothing drive for the ‘Kids Kloset’, who collect clothing for Westchester teens living under the poverty line. Jacob also volunteers with the Harrison High School ‘Peer Leadership’ program where faculty select students to serve as mentors, facilitating and creating team building exercises within the school, and run activities for incoming sixth graders into the middle school and freshmen into the high school. He also works as a teacher’s assistant and manages the office at his local temple, Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester.
• Isaiah Jordan Moore lives in Mount Vernon and attends Nellie Thornton High School. He is the youngest of four children and was born with Spina Bifida. The doctors gave his parents a list of “nevers” when he was born, and every limit placed upon him became a challenge to defeat.
Isaiah is a member of Emmanuel Pentecostal Faith Temple in Mount Vernon and has been a member of the choir, audio visual ministry, and the ‘Men’s Group’. He has served Thanksgiving dinners to the community in church and at the Boys and Girls Club of Mount Vernon. Additionally Isaiah’s community service has centered on his work with the Boys and Girls Club of Mount Vernon, the ‘Junior Peacekeepers’ of Mount Vernon, and the ‘Long Island Lightning Wheelchair Basketball Team’. Isaiah has volunteered at the club for several years during the fall, and has worked with the club through the Mount Vernon Youth Bureau during the summer. He has helped in preparing the ‘Halloween Spook House’, passed out gifts as a result of the Christmas ‘Toy Drive’, coaches the 10 and under Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team and has helped to arrange and videotape the club’s Historically Black College Fair. Isaiah’s relationship with one Westchester family helped him to be a catalyst that brought in over $100,000 to the Boys and Girls Club of Mount Vernon and over $35,000 to his wheelchair basketball team. He hosted two separate wheelchair basketball fundraising games at the Boys and Girls Club of Mount Vernon.
• Jeffrey Naft lives in Yorktown Heights and attends Yorktown High School. He is a recent graduate of the Yorktown ‘Youth Court’, which educates students about the justice system. In order to graduate, students must pass a ‘Mock Bar Exam’. Graduates then try real juvenile cases, and the juvenile defendants are sentenced to community service, which is decided by the Youth Court. He has served in the capacity of Head Judge, District Attorney, and Defense Attorney.
Jeff was chosen to receive the F. Cecil Grace Foundation Operation Positive Role Model Award, which recognizes students for “doing the right thing.” He was one of the founders of “Operation G.R.A.C.E.” at his school and through this club; Jeff volunteers to be a “Special Reader” at the local elementary school. He has raised funds for the ‘American Cancer Society Relay for Life’, is vice president of the Yorktown High School ‘Key Club’ and has served as head bingo announcer during bingo at the Country House, a senior assisted community in Yorktown Heights.
Jeff is an active member of Holy Spirit Church in Cortlandt Manor and volunteers to assist with the children’s Liturgy and as a counselor at their vacation bible camp. Jeff has been involved in the “Giving Tree,” which is a means to collect Christmas gifts for families in shelters. He is also a member of the Yorktown United Methodist Church Youth Group, where he has helped prepare and serve meals at Jan Peek, which is a homeless shelter.
• Hannah Steinberg lives in Scarsdale and attends the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester. In seventh grade, she co-created a chess tutoring program where she teaches kids who can't afford lessons about the game of chess and wants to inspire more girls to play chess, as she is the only female on the school chess team.
Hannah used $500 saved from babysitting and, by clipping coupons, was able to buy school supplies, games, food, toiletries, and supplies worth more than $2,000 to donate to the Coachman Family Center, a shelter for over 100 families. She clipped coupons daily which she used to get necessities for the shelter for small payments or even free and fundraised and received donations to give her the purchasing power of over $40,000. On her YouTube channel, she had a contest to challenge viewers to see who could have the greatest impact on their community. At her school, Hannah is co-club leader of the ‘Katrina Relief’ club, which raises awareness and money for the tragedies resulting from Hurricane Katrina. The club has helped organize various fundraisers and trips to help relief efforts and travels to Biloxi, Mississippi every year to help with relief efforts.
