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Community Corner

Local Teens Honored at Annual Westchester Legislative Breakfast

The 2011 Westchester Legislative Breakfast gathered elected officials from all levels of government at the Jewish Community Center of Harrison on Sunday. Seventy local young people were honored for their service in and around the Gulf Coast region.

Sixty-two teens from 13 different Westchester towns and cities were among 70 young people who received the President’s Volunteer Service Award on Sunday at the .

The teens were honored during the 2011 Westchester Legislative Breakfast, an event sponsored by The UJA-Federation of New York/Westchester and the Westchester Jewish Council that serves as an annual gathering of lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican parties. Featured speakers at this year’s breakfast included New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-18), Congressman Eliot Engel (D-17), and Congresswoman Nan Hayworth (R-19), all of whom spoke about issues ranging from oversight of financial institutions to the state’s budget cuts and fiscal responsibility.

But the event also highlighted efforts of a less partisan nature. The teens honored on Sunday, including 12 from Harrison and Purchase, participated in several worthwhile volunteer activities, including a service trip to Louisiana and helping to launch a community garden in a neighborhood ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

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Charlotte Bilski of Chappaqua and Michelle Wexler of Scarsdale served as co-chairs for the Louisiana service trip. Bilski and Wexler—and 30 other teenagers from Armonk, Bedford, Harrison, Mamaroneck, New Rochelle, Pound Ridge, and Purchase, and one from Greenwich, Conn.—raised $10,000 through a drive that gave funds to four nonprofit partners in Louisiana. The group donated books, painted the cafeteria at a local academy, sorted food at a food bank, brought needed supplies to a children’s health project, and worked on rehabilitating three homes.

Twenty young people from Irvington, Mamaroneck, Millwood, New York City, New City, Rye Brook, Scarsdale and White Plains were honored for their work with Coastal Women for Change. The group worked to prepare land for a community garden in a neighborhood affected by Hurricane Katrina. They also designed, painted, and erected signs inviting people to the garden, which is located in Biloxi, Miss.

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Twelve Scarsdale and five Long Island teens were recognized for their Families Feeding Families trip to Mississippi and Louisiana. They helped in the distribution of $9,000 worth of household and personal items to victims of Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and they worked on home repairs with the St. Bernard Project in Louisiana on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The teens honored at the Legislative Breakfast completed more than 1,000 total hours of community service during the recent Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend.

Some of the teens, who are members of the J-Teen Leadership community service program, will be continuing their volunteer efforts locally. Bilski told the audience about an upcoming International Day of Jewish Teen Leadership event on April 10. The group will host a Read and Romp event at the Eugenio Maria de Hostos School in Yonkers.

For its efforts in Louisiana, the J-Teen Leadership group also received acknowledgment from President Barack Obama.

Wexler read a letter sent to the group from the president, who thanked the teens for “helping [to] address the most pressing needs in your community and our country.”

In the letter, Obama said individual efforts could be as equally important as the government’s efforts to address social problems.

“While government can open more opportunities for us to serve our communities, it is up to each of us to seize those opportunities.”

 Here is a complete list of the teen honorees:

Armonk Lazarus, Mia Nick, Alex Nick, Jordan Bedford Rieger, Abby Chappaqua Bilski, Charlotte Finkelstein, Brett Greenstein, Ali Greenwich Moelis, Kate Harrison Bender, Hannah Franklin, Michael Hughson, Lindsay Irvington Siegel, Sam Mamaroneck Cohen, Molly Cohen, Sophie Corbin, Jessica Girsky,Hayley Goldstein, Josh Golub, Jill Zelin, Danielle Millwood Schluger, Julia New City Schwartz, Aaron New Rochelle Medin, Danielle New York Chusit, Deborah Pound Ridge Froehlich, Gabrielle Purchase Barich, Elijah Brown, Isabelle Brown, Sophie Brown, Sydney Dubin, Amanda Hochfelder, Charles Sobel, Ryan Starker, Andrew Wein, Nicholas Rye Brook Friedman, Ari Sands Point Adsetts, Eric Katz, Danielle Kramer, Ari Satovsky, Adam Silverstein, Talia Scarsdale Akabas, Reuben Bender,Kendall Berger, Yael Berk, Chelsea Berman, Douglas Eliach, Joel Ezratty, Danielle Farfel, Alexandra Goldberg, Philip Gottlieb, Lewis Hartman, Heath Kivell, Caroline Koshakow, Michael Kurlan, Ian Quartner, Andrea Rosenbaum, Rebecca Ross, Josh Samwick, Oliver Schnitzer, Katherine Schwartzbaum, Hanna Selinger, Ilan Shemesh, Chelsea Spitalny, Samantha Thurm, Jason Wexler, Michelle Winston, Jonah White Plains Cove, Ethan Holder, Sami Meixler, Anna Ringel, Evan Werner, Evan

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