Congratulations, Samantha!

In her application for the AFF scholarship last year, Samantha Riley wrote about a group close to her heart: the Girl Scouts. Samantha started Girl Scouts at age six, continued up until her senior year, and was awarded the Bronze and Silver Awards for eighty hours of community service! To fulfill her hours, Samantha focused on the Clinton Community Library and decided to paint an open room and completely redo it to make it a quiet area for people to study. For the Gold Award, the highest achievement in Girl Scouts USA, Samantha had plans to create a craft closet in Ferncliff Nursing Home, but unfortunately the pandemic halted these plans.

Currently, Samantha is a freshman at Siena College in Albany, and is exploring many different classes before declaring a major. She plans to narrow down the search next semester when—fingers crossed—things are a little bit more normal. At Siena, Samantha participates in a soccer club and is planning on enrolling in a mentoring club next semester. Samantha is also working at the post office, getting packages for UPS, and says this is the best job she's ever had! This summer, she will be heading home to Red Hook and is always looking for new opportunities to volunteer for her community. 

Fun fact: Samantha was an Irish step-dancer for ten years!

Congratulations, Christopher!

When the pandemic hit last March, Christopher Donohue, who was a senior at Red Hook High School at the time, worked with Dan Budd to start up Red Hook Responds to address the ever-growing needs of people in the community impacted by the pandemic. Chris set up schedules for volunteers and helped out with the website, as well as provided transport and organized “neighbor chats” to bring people a sense of comfort. Many Red Hook residents found that with the pandemic, food insecurity and trouble getting necessary medication was rampant. To help address this need, Red Hook Responds provided meal and pharmacy deliveries. Soon, Chris realized that RHR not only provided people with necessary services, but it provided volunteers with an opportunity to get out of their houses during quarantine and ready to have something to do. “There were crazy different demographics of people,” he recalls. “College students working with seventy-year-olds!”

Now, Chris is a freshman at Middlebury College in Vermont, with a newly declared global health minor and potential sociology major. Middlebury funds four weeks of unpaid internships, and for this summer Chris is returning to Red Hook Responds. With his current global health and data science classes, he hopes to be able to make some sort of report for Red Hook Responds and is excited to see what comes next.

Kingston YMCA Farm Project: Partnership Spotlight #6!

The mission of the Kingston YMCA Farm Project, located in midtown Kingston, is to “educate, nourish and connect the Kingston community with our urban farm.” The pandemic has limited the Farm Project’s ability to provide field trips and in-school learning experiences, but the Farm Project has still worked hard to run many of its programs and in some cases even been able to expand some. The Kingston YMCA Farm Project sought funding from the Ascienzo Family Foundation to support numerous amazing programs: Language Justice Training with Interpretation Practice, a How To Be An Anti-Racist Book Club, the Kingston YMCA Cookbook Project, and the Kingston Garden Bed Project. Each program will benefit about 8-10 youth, and offer a chance to connect and learn with peers even during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ascienzo Family Foundation was able to grant $15,000 this year to support these programs!

The Foundation for Ellis Medicine: Ambassador Spotlight #6!

In his first year of advocacy as an Ascienzo Family Foundation ambassador, Damon Allen worked with The Foundation for Ellis Medicine, during the fall grant cycle. The Foundation for Ellis Medicine is a nonprofit organization that “ensures a quality healthcare community by raising, investing and distributing funds that support the lifesaving work performed at Ellis Medicine.” Ellis Hospital is a community hospital in Schenectady, NY that serves thousands of community members who have limited or no health insurance. COVID-19 crisis altered many hospital functions, including making visitation hours for families very difficult. As a result, patients were suffering from the added burden of social isolation. The Foundation for Ellis Medicine will use $5,000 from the Ascienzo Family Foundation to expand the number of iPads available per floor to facilitate communication between patients and their family members. As the Foundation describes, the extra tablets have “the potential to benefit hundreds of patients per week and thousands per year.” The video chat possible through the tablets is particularly valuable to patients whose medical conditions make them unable to make phone calls or speak, and patients who do not have their own smartphone or tablet. As Damon explained in his application, “Communication with family members can be the most comforting thing we as healthcare providers can give to a patient.”

Ramapo For Children: Partnership Spotlight #5

For close to 100 years, Ramapo for Children has operated a variety of direct service and professional development programs for youth; their mission being “to keep young people from being relegated to the margins of their schools, programs, families, or communities because of challenging behaviors, cognitive disabilities, or other differences.” Two of Ramapo’s summer programs, Camp Ramapo and Summer Sensations, were at the focus of their grant application to the Ascienzo Family Foundation. Camp Ramapo is an overnight summer camp that serves over 500 children ages six to twenty-one, providing a wide range of kids with the opportunity “to experience success.” Summer Sensations is an inclusive day camp for local children ages five to twelve years old, and similarly provides engaging, meaningful skill-building experiences for campers. The programs are staffed primarily by college students through a summer internship program, particularly of interest to young adults interested in pursuing education, special education, psychology, social work, and other human services fields. With the help of a $25,000 grant from the Ascienzo Family Foundation, Ramapo will create a Hudson Valley Fellows program, providing the opportunity for 10 students to receive exceptional leadership training and coaching as summer staff members. The program is especially important in order to make sure the staff experience is available to students from historically marginalized and under-resourced communities, who would not be able to accept a summer position with a low stipend (the program will provide a special stipend match in addition to the advanced training provided).

Check out Ramapo for Children’s newsletter here!