The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Amy Kelley

Ability Beyond Receives Grant to Help People with Disabilities Enter Workforce

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One in four Americans has a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while people with disabilities have a lot to offer the workforce, there can be obstacles to finding employment, for both eager employers and prospective employees.

Disability Solutions, a group within Ability Beyond, a non-profit with its New York headquarters in Chappaqua, seeks to help overcome these obstacles – and now, they’ve been awarded a $50,000 grant from the PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) foundation to help them do so.

Kristine Foss, managing director of Disability Solutions, said the money will fund efforts including a year-long series of webinars for “talent acquisition professionals and job seekers.”

“For 60 years we’ve been working with job seekers in New York and Connecticut and helping them find jobs,” Foss said of her parent organization. “We had employers reaching out to us, and from those conversations, Disability Solutions was formed to build a bridge between employers and job seekers.”

Job seekers with disabilities vary widely, Foss said. Some have developmental disabilities; others have physical disabilities due to aging or medical disabilities; still others are veterans with service disabilities.

Job seekers with disabilities may have questions as they try to find employment, Foss said. They may be unsure whether or not to disclose a disability to a potential employer; they may need guidance on “how to professionally follow up, make sure keywords are in their resumes, how to navigate the interview process” and even how to “dress for success,” Foss said.

“Some of it is great advice that anyone can benefit from,” Foss said. “But of course we target it to people with disabilities.” The first webinar for job seekers launched this past winter with several planned for the coming months. Just this past week, webinars to help employers prepare for a pay equity audit and to help jobseekers decide on disclosing if they have disability were launched. Six additional webinars are planned for May and June and additional information to register can be found at disabilitytalent.org/events-webinars.

Disability Solutions also offers information to talent acquisition professionals. Foss said that many companies really aim to benefit from hiring the many talented and hardworking people with disabilities, but may need help removing obstacles in their hiring processes. For example, an online application can have “unintentional barriers,” Foss said.

Ability Beyond clients receiving therapeutic services at the Chappaqua Crossing location. Photo courtesy of Ability Beyond

Foss’s group has helped large companies like Pepsico, American Express and Synchrony Financial hire thousands of people.

Shaileen Brighton-Ortiz, assistant director of programs and services in New York, works out of Ability Beyond in the recently opened Chappaqua Crossing location. About four years ago, Ability Beyond moved out of its former location on Kisco Avenue in Mount Kisco. “We’ve grown rapidly since then because we’ve been able to serve more people in the space we’re in now.”

“I oversee the day and work programs in New York,” she said. “Our New York office is located here in Chappaqua. We serve about 200 people in our work program and about 180 people in our day program.” Ability Beyond does fundraising, and receives funds from New York State and other government partners. “We do get grants but not enough of them,” she said.

It’s a continuum of services, Brighton-Ortiz explained. People with disabilities come into the program “mostly from transitional programs in the high schools.” They are then assessed and are either matched with an internship or a pre-vocational program, the aim of which is to hopefully prepare and transition each person to an internship if possible.

“Once they acquire skills that will help them be successful in competitive employment,” these individuals are then graduated, referred to a state agency and then work with an employment specialist (often called a job coach),” Brighton-Ortiz said.

The day program has a site-based component and another component that is really “without walls,” Brighton-Ortiz explained, but the location in Chappaqua operates as a “hub.” From there, people may go out to internships, physical, recreational, or cultural activities. “There’s a blend of programming,” she said. “We don’t really believe in an adult day program. People are able to graduate when they’ve accomplished their goals. We partner with Disability Solutions and other agencies. It’s like graduating from high school to college – they have options.” Currently, about 40 percent of the people in Ability Beyond’s program are in the site-based program and 60 percent in the “without walls” component.

“I’m really excited to spread the word about this innovated and talented group of job seekers nationally,” Foss said. “Companies are looking for talent.”

Getting to Know the Junior League of Northern Westchester

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF JLNW

 Helping the Local Community for 65 Years

This year marks the 65th anniversary of that venerable, but hardly hidebound, local institution: the Junior League of Northern Westchester (JLNW).

Way back in 1971, the organization helped establish the Mount Kisco Child Care Center. In the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, the group’s focus was on domestic violence and in the early 2000’s, hunger and childhood obesity; the JLNW partnered for a time with the Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry too. Now, there’s a focus on human trafficking and the safety of girls and women, as well as raising children in a digital age – and the group also runs an annual Holiday Sharing Drive.

“The Junior League is a community service organization that looks to identify critical needs in our community and develops unique ways to find solutions,” Clara Sharp, president elect of the Junior League of Northern Westchester, said.

To combat human trafficking–specifically the commercial sexual exploitation of children–the league has had a connection for the past several years with The Gateways Program, which is part of the JCCA Cottage Schools in Pleasantville.

Last month the group presented a well-attended program called Join the Conversation: Protecting Children in a Hyper Digital Age at the Bedford Playhouse. Liz Repking, the founder of Cyber Safety Consulting spoke. Topics discussed included sexting, gaming safety, restrictions and settings, and popular apps to use safely.

The Holiday Sharing Drive, started in 1980, is a favorite initiative of Sharp’s. “It’s really, truly a heart-warming experience,” she said. About ten social service agencies help

the league by identifying around 200 families who could use help at holiday time. Then, all members of each family including the adults write a list of what they need and/or desire to receive. “We match these families with people in the community,” Sharp said. Then, the gifts are purchased, readied and are packaged in bins and gathered in the gym of the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester for distribution.

Armonk resident Trina Fontaine is also enthusiastic about the Holiday Sharing Drive. “The thing that got me hooked in the beginning was that (the junior league) had a number of initiatives going with other non-profits,” she said, adding that her church now adopts four families during the drive. But the trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation is the cause that’s “near and dear” to her heart, she said. “It really disgusts me and it shouldn’t happen here” in Westchester.

These ideas, Sharp said, come from both members and groups with which the Junior League has formed partnerships, like Northern Westchester Hospital. “It’s a two-pronged approach,” she said. “It’s not so much a formal process, but it’s something that evolves over time.”

Often, after they take off, Junior League projects wind up in the hands of others.

“We have a strong history of introducing programming that can be released back into the community,” Sharp said. “After a certain number of years, it becomes self-sustaining and that’s truly what we consider a success story.” For example, Hope’s Door, formerly known as the Northern Westchester Shelter, was started by the Junior League and is now completely independent.

“To be in the junior league is to be in a group of women who share your desire to make a difference in your community,” Sharp said. A popular misconception is that the junior league is a group of women who don’t work outside the home. Sharp works full-time as a fundraiser for a medical school, and said she is by no means the only member who has a career. “It’s women of all demographics.”

Emily Hunt, president of the JLNW, stated, “As a mother of daughters, I am especially proud of all the work we have done and continue to do to advance women and girls in our community, to ensure their safety and security and provide them, as adults, an outlet to give back to the community.”

Sharp joined in 2013, when she moved to Chappaqua, at the suggestion of her mother-in-law, a longtime member and past president herself. She said it was “a nice way to meet like-minded women,” Sharp said.

Joining the Junior League is easy, Sharp said: All you have to do is contact the group and say you want to join. In the past, joining was a more formal process and each new member needed a sponsor.

While the group prefers to admit new members twice a year so the women coming in have a greater chance to get to know other new members, really, Sharp said, new members can join any time. “As the times have changed, so have our policies and procedures,” Sharp said. “If you want to make a difference, we want you to join.”

 

Women from Chappaqua, Armonk, Pleasantville, Bedford, Mount Kisco, Pound Ridge, Briarcliff and more are members, meeting once a month, every third Tuesday, in order to move forward on projects and initiatives to improve the community.

 

Greeley Grad Pursues Startup Dreams as a Venture for America Fellow

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Horace Greeley graduate Grant Steinhauer finished up at Tufts last spring, and instead of taking the corporate route, he landed a fellowship with Venture for America, a nonprofit that trains young entrepreneurs, and works for a startup in New Orleans. “I did the whole corporate internship thing where you feel like a cog in a machine,” Steinhauer said. “And I felt that wasn’t really for me.”

Looking for something “more impactful,” he wandered by a Venture for America booth at a career fair and was prompted to do a little research. He liked what he learned, and applied for a fellowship.

College students apply to Venture for America and go through an interview process like that for any job. “When you get accepted they connect you with startups around the country that are in cities in need of economic revitalization,” Steinhauer explained, such as San Antonio, New Orleans, Baltimore, Cleveland and Detroit. “It’s like an online dating program.”

Each fellow posts a profile with a resume and can indicate interest in factors such as location, size, and field of interest. Startups can then make job offers to fellows that look like good fits. “Technically you’re not guaranteed a job, but there are more startups than fellows,” Steinhauer said.

Fellows then attend a five-week training camp in Detroit over the summer, which besides job preparation, enables the fellows to get to know each other. That helps when it comes to moving to new cities. “Venture for America doesn’t actually help you find housing,” Steinhauer said, explaining that getting to know the 14 other fellows heading to New Orleans meant he had many potential roommates. “I moved to New Orleans with 14 friends.”

That sense of community extends to fellows from other years, who offer a helping hand to newer fellows when they can. The startups are required to pay a minimum salary, which is generally less than what a motivated ambitious college grad would make at, say, a standard corporate career-ladder starting position. But myriad benefits accrue to each fellow that may prove more beneficial on a long-term basis than more money.

First of all, at a startup, “you do everything,” Steinhauer said. Instead of developing a more narrow expertise at a first job, Venture for America fellows experience a broad range of responsibilities. Secondly, the natural ending point of the two-year commitment means that the fellows can be assured of a built-in opportunity to “pivot,” or make a career change. The two years provide “a great organic cutoff,” Steinhauer said. “I didn’t want to become complacent.”

Steinhauer works in New Orleans at Maverick VR, a virtual reality company that helps other companies provide virtual reality experiences at an array of corporate events and trade shows.

Another benefit of a Venture for America fellowship is that if Steinhauer wants to form his own startup after his time at Maverick VR, Venture for America will help him with that, too, through a program they offer fellows called the VFA Accelerator, which gives fellows starting businesses four months in Detroit to work, have access to advisors, and even pitch to investors.

There are a disproportionate amount of Greeley kids who do Venture for America after college. I would be very surprised if there was higher representation from any other high school.

“There are tons of fellow-founded companies,” Steinhauer said. They include Ash & Eire, a fashion company focused on clothing for men 5’8” and under; Aiva, which helps real estate agents with their leads; Cooperative Capital, a private equity fund that helps people pool money for community-focused investments; and The Spoke, which enables users to “search and store recommendations from friends and influencers. ”In this way, Venture for America hopes to have a long term impact on the economies of the cities to which they send fellows.

(As a side note, Venture for America founder Andrew Yang’s ambitions for our country don’t stop there. He’s running for President and already has a website up promoting his campaign to secure the Democratic nomination in 2020. His policies include a universal basic income and Medicare for all. “He’s getting support from young people because he’s very very progressive,” Steinhauer said.)

When he got involved with Venture for America, Steinhauer had an interesting realization. “There are a disproportionate amount of Greeley kids who do Venture for America after college,” Steinhauer said, adding that while he doesn’t have hard statistics on the percentage of participation by Horace Greeley graduates, it seems to him that there are a surprising number, especially since Venture for America recruits from colleges, not high schools. “I would be very surprised if there was higher representation from any other high school.”

Steinhauer said the environment in Chappaqua “creates a really tight-knit sense of community and I consider Chappaqua a really close town.” In this way, he said, growing up in Chappaqua prepares youngsters for the startup environment. In both places, community is key, and being surrounded by hard workers helps each person do his or her best.“You can get a lot of stuff done if you’re surrounded by great people and hard workers,” he said.

Greeley Grad Raises Money for Women in Kore, Ethiopia on Cross-Country Bike Trip

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On a sweltering Thursday in July, Horace Greeley ’10 grad James Rosenberg missed a phone call from a reporter.

“I ended yesterday in Hell’s Canyon,” he explained later. “They say it’s named that due to the heat but I suspect it’s due to lack of cell signal.” Ultimately though, Rosenberg proved pretty reachable for a guy on the last two weeks of a cross-country bike trip.

Rosenberg was close to achieving his goals: the completion of a ride from Yorktown, VA to Astoria, OR and his fundraising aim of $20,000 to benefit Ethiopian women in the community of Kore, Ethiopia, through a charity called ‘I Pour Life.’ Kore is a community located on a garbage dump on the outskirts of Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa and has 100,000 residents. Many of these marginalized residents are widows, orphans and HIV/AIDS victims.

A Novice Biker

After attending Emory University in Georgia and working in corporate strategy first for Dollar Tree and then, back in New York, for JP Morgan, Rosenberg decided to get his MBA. “About two to two-and-a-half years ago I started the process of applying to business school and to keep myself sane, I planned a big trip,” Rosenberg said. He cast about for ideas and just kept coming back to consider a bike trip. “I was not a bike rider–I had to buy the bike to do this,” he added.

So Rosenberg began talking to friends about it and was put in touch with a friend’s cousin who had done an earlier ride to benefit the women of Kore. The idea felt right. “To me, it made a lot of sense to do the Ride for Kore,” Rosenberg said. ‘The Ride for Kore’ helps set up individual Ethiopian women with the security, training and financing they need to start small businesses and be self-supporting. The business-training aspect particularly resonated with Rosenberg as he headed toward business school. “It was such a perfect parallel for me I knew I had to do it,” he said.

The Training Process

In March of 2017 Rosenberg bought the bike and began to train in his New York City apartment for an hour each morning. “I was more or less sitting on my bike watching Netflix,” he said.

His upbringing in Chappaqua had prepared him to take on a long ride. “Chappaqua is definitely a town where endurance sports are big–at least they were in my life,” Rosenberg said. “I was a cross-country runner in high school so I definitely thought it’s not how fast you go as much as how long you go.”

On April 29 of this year Rosenberg began his journey. Unlike most road bikers in our area, his bike is laden with four panniers (“they’re basically saddlebags like a motorcyclist or a horseback rider would have,” he said), a sleeping mat, a tent and a place to view maps up front. That’s how he navigates–with maps provided by the Adventure Cycling Association. He pitches his tent in parks where allowed, or in other more rustic locations, and occasionally sleeps in the basements of certain churches that are open to all.

Enjoying the Ride

Rosenberg generally rides six to seven hours a day. “It sounds a bit boring but it’s incredible. You are powering yourself so every inch you go is up to you. I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy each ride,” he said. “I thought that what would get me through would be music or podcasts but mostly I just listen to the sounds of nature.” When he does turn to technology for a little entertainment, Rosenberg’s favorites include NPR, classic rock and Jack Reacher novels.

Besides the ride, Rosenberg also said he enjoyed meeting so many friendly people from all across the land. “I have become such a big fan of this country, not that I wasn’t before,” he said. “Once you get out here everyone is incredibly friendly and so many people have gone out of their way to help me” with advice, dinners and even places to stay. “I’m very thankful,” Rosenberg added.

But while he’s enjoyed seeing the country, Rosenberg is clear about the main benefit of his voyage. “This ride is for Kore,” he said. “That’s the stated mission.” Rosenberg will be accepting donations at rideforkore.com for a while following the completion of his journey, which is scheduled to end on or around July 27. At press time, he had raised more than $15,000 toward his goal.

Bronx Lacrosse Greeley Alumn’s Efforts to Empower Students In the Classroom & On the Field

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF DAN LEVENTHAL

Horace Greeley grad Dan Leventhal (‘10) loves lacrosse. He played it in high school and continued on at Tufts University, where he won a national championship and majored in sociology. Now, he’s brought his favorite sport to the South Bronx, where he says it has the power to change the lives of local kids for the better, both on the playing field and in the classroom.

Leventhal spent some time in Israel after graduating from college and from there, he joined Teach for America and was assigned to The Highbridge Green School, a middle school in the South Bronx. He just finished his third year there teaching math to eighth graders.

In 2015, Leventhal decided to start a lacrosse program at the school, and he launched it in the spring of 2016, at Highbridge Green, a school he says is located in the poorest congressional district in America.

“The kids all love lacrosse,” Leventhal said. “In the South Bronx, everyone’s playing basketball. It gives them uniqueness and a chance to differentiate themselves. It’s a fast-paced sport, combinging basketball, football and soccer,” Leventhal added.

“These kids have so much going on at home,” he added. “This gives them a release.” And that’s what Leventhal’s aim is: to help the lacrosse scholars, as they are called, deal with their lives successfully.

And Leventhal said so far, outcomes of program participation have shown positive results, including better attendance, punctuality and higher achievement in various markers of reading and math learning on average when Bronx Lacrosse scholars are compared with other students at Highbridge Green. In order to participate in the program, a certain grade point average is required, Leventhal said. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” the principal of The Highbridge Green School has said of the achievements of the Bronx Lacrosse scholars.

Last spring and fall, a girls’ program was added at The Highbridge Green School and there’s also a Bronx Lacrosse program now at another local middle school.

While lacrosse is a spring sport, Bronx Lacrosse has the student athletes training in the fall also, Leventhal said, and even during the summer. “What we’ve done this summer is gotten our kids scholarships at different lacrosse camps. It’s a great opportunity for them,” he said, adding that next year Bronx Lacrosse will be looking for even more camp opportunities and also aiming to find sponsors to help foot the bill for the kids to go on fall trips to play lacrosse with teams from other programs. Bronx Lacrosse has already traveled to Connecticut and to Chappaqua.

“It is a lacrosse organization, but the mission is to keep kids out of the streets and create positive outcomes,” Leventhal said. “It’s an organization that aims to empower youth in the classroom and on the field.” To that end, Bronx Lacrosse has two full-time program coordinators besides Leventhal.

Anyone interested in the initiative can watch Highbridge: A Bronx Lacrosse Story on YouTube and check out the program’s website at bronxlacrosse.org.

This past year, besides growing his organization and teaching math,  Leventhal played in the World Lacrosse Championship as a midfielder for Israel’s team, which placed 7th of 45. “Some of our games were on ESPN so it was exciting for the kids to watch me,” Leventhal said. “And make fun of me.”

Most funding for the program currently comes from money distributed from each school’s principal as well as from NYC’s after-school program, Leventhal said, but as he transitions to full-time with Bronx Lacrosse he will be focusing on developing other fundraising sources.

Of his latest plans, Leventhal said “Fundraising is a major priority. We’re going to have a big fundraiser, probably next spring.” Leventhal said his desire to give back is motivated in part by his upbringing in Chappaqua. “I had a lot of opportunity growing up,” he said. “My parents always got me whatever I needed for sports. That’s our goal here–to make these things accessible to these kids.”