The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

The Inside Press

Chappaqua Couple Honored by CAREERS for People with Disabilities

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Tom-Adimari-to-Browns2CAREERS for People with Disabilities (CAREERS) celebrated 26 years and 214 successful clients at their Annual Anniversary Celebration, sponsored by PepsiCo Enable and The Standard and held at the White Plains Crowne Plaza on September 24th.

The event highlighted the success of CAREERS clients; individuals with disabilities who have been successfully trained and placed in jobs throughout Westchester and Putnam Counties, as well as offering thanks to corporate and foundation sponsors. For sustaining CAREERS’ supported work programs, Awards of Appreciation were given to BJ’s Charitable Foundation, Costco, Hitachi Metals America, the Hitachi Foundation, H.O.P.E for Youth Foundation, Hudson City Savings Bank, TD Bank, The United Way of Westchester & Putnam and Wells Fargo. Other contributing event sponsors were honored including Curry Automotive, Chappaqua’s Marianne & Patrick Brown, The Kitson Law Firm, ShopRite Supermarkets and Universal American.

“Special thanks to the many employers who give our clients the opportunity to prove that abilities far outweigh disabilities. You make a real difference every day for your employees and the community and have helped make CAREERS the most successful supported work program in the area,” CAREERS Executive Director Tina Cornish-Lauria said. “We are proud to offer these services free of charge to disabled individuals and their employers.”

Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Scarsdale was named Employer of the Year for their accommodating and enthusiastic support of CAREERS client Frank DeSimone, an IHM staff member for seven years. Candice Sciarrillo, manager of Carmel Cinema, received the Supervisor of the Year Award for her advocacy on behalf of three CAREERS’ clients, including implementing sensitivity training for all staff. CAREERS’ client Nick Simon was named “Employee of the Year” for his outstanding performance at the White Plains Target, where he has worked for ten years.

Also honored with the Outstanding Program Support Award was Greg Lau, Case Manager and Transition Coordinator for the City School District of New Rochelle. Barry Creighton from A & P in Greenburgh was named Co-Worker of the Year for his ongoing support and friendship with CAREERS client John Lefurgy.

About CAREERS for People with Disabilities, Inc.

CAREERS’ mission is to insure disabled individuals find sustained, meaningful employment in the communities in which they live. Since 1987, CAREERS has made over 2,200 job placements and provided support services to well over 6,000 people with disabilities in Westchester and Putnam Counties. Already in 2013, CAREERS has placed 90 people in new jobs — a 58% increase over last year at this time.

For more information on CAREERS programs for disabled individuals or employers in need of qualified help, contact CAREERS’ Valhalla office, which serves central and lower Westchester at 914-741-8500, or the Carmel office, which serves northern Westchester and Putnam Counties, at 845-225-8007. For more information, please visit www.careersforpeoplewithdisabilities.org, or friend us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CAREERSforPeople.

Consulting for a Cause Presents a Wellness Retreat

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causeFriday, October 11, 2013 • 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM

This retreat will offer a morning of respite from your everyday routine as you experience four different areas of wellness to address your whole body and mind. In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we will discuss breast cancer prevention and other women’s health issues. If you have never experienced yoga or meditation, this is a perfect opportunity! If you are a seasoned yogi, come meet and practice with an exceptional yoga instructor with over twenty years of experience…and who couldn’t benefit from some sound nutritional advice?

Small groups will cycle through all four sessions:

  1. Yoga-for all levels
  2. Nutrition and Weight Reduction
  3. Coping with Stress and Mindfulness Meditation and
  4. Women’s Health.

Please bring a yoga mat if you have one.

Location:

49 Stornowaye, Chappaqua, NY (Map)

Fee: $65.00 per person, includes coffee, tea, juice, healthy snacks, and spa lunch

Go here to register https://www.eventbrite.com/event/8413425783

Facilitators and Presenters:

Jodi Baretz, LCSW, HHC, is a psychotherapist and certified health coach. She is the Director for Health and Wellness at Consulting for a Cause and has training in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. Baretz will offer insight and strategies on coping with day-to-day stress, and lead a brief mindfulness meditation.

Susan Kullman, a positive, energetic and spiritual life force, is the founder and principal of Intentional Wellness and Yoga Center. She has over eleven years of yoga experience.

Corinne Menn, MD, is a board certified gynecologist and fellow of the American College of OB/GYN with a private practice in Chappaqua. She focuses on preventative care and wellness for women of all ages, from adolescence through menopause as well as the unique health concerns of cancer survivors. She will lead a discussion and answer questions on Women’s Health.

Stefanie Schwartz, RD, MS, CDN, a registered dietician and founder of Nutritionally Yours in practice for seventeen years, will educate you on good nutritional choices and advise on weight loss and management.

Donate Your Used College Books

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booksDo you have gently used or new college books sitting on your bookshelf? 

If so, please consider sending them to us to resell through Amazon. 

We accept:

  • New Books
  • Gently Used Books
  • Books Used in Any College or University Within the Last 5 Years
  • Books with Underlined and Highlighted Passages

We don’t Accept:

  • Books with Torn or Missing Pages
  • Books with Missing Covers
  • Books with Broken Binding

How to Donate Books:

  • Mail or bring your books to 4 West Red Oak Lane, Suite 330, White Plains, NY  10604

This is an easy way to clean out your bookshelves and help The Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center raise funds to support our community programs.

Questions?  Call us at 914.696.0738 or email info@hhrecny.org

Meet Author Peter Sis at the CCBF

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PeterSis-BirdsCatching Up with Peter Sis

By Anna Maslakovic

It starts with a surprising discovery or a deeply felt emotion.  Lines and dots follow, a simple sketch on a piece of paper.  Over the ensuing months, dots grow by the hundreds.  A face might emerge from a snowflake, a wall, or the body of a fish.

Peter Sis, a MacArthur Fellow and Newberry Medal winner with films in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), is one of over 60 writers and artists attending the inaugural Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival on October 5.  His pointillist, surrealist style graces over 20 books and is integral to an artistic quest that began behind the Iron Curtain and led to New York City and Westchester.

Born in 1949, Sis grew up in communist Prague and from an early age loved to draw.  He channeled his non-conformist art into animation because the field was under the radar of the regime’s censors.  In 1982, on a government-sponsored trip to the U.S., Sis decided not to return home.  A conversation with Maurice Sendak led him to children’s illustration.  The first book he illustrated, The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleishman, won the Newberry Medal.  Many more projects followed.  Sis has a studio in downtown Manhattan and lives with his family in Irvington.

PeterSisSubwayHe is attracted to subjects with deep personal meaning.  “For years, I watched my children grow and tried to create books that might interest them,” he says.  Madlenka was meant for his young daughter.  With Starry Messenger, the award-winning biography of Galileo Galilei, Sis hoped to instruct his son about the value of science.  The Wall casts their father’s history within a pictorial trajectory of the Cold War.  Since both children are grown now, Sis is learning to cope with the empty nest syndrome. “I have to think harder,” he says.

His books often involve travel.  In The Three Golden Keys, Sis makes a magical return to the labyrinthine and memory-laden Prague of his youth in the company of a black cat.  A Small Tall Tale From the Far North spins an arctic quest from fact and fiction. As in real life, there are journeys within journeys.  Drawing on layers of bedtime stories, diary entries, myths, and haunting imagery, Tibet Through Red Box juxtaposes a trek on the roof of the world with a poignant father-son reunion and a reassessment of one’s own beliefs and desires.

The book as journey idea, Sis says, “comes from a childhood and young adulthood in a place where it was impossible to go far. Perhaps also from the Jules Verne 19th century sentiment that travel is romantic.”

Peter-SisSis’ creative process is intuitive.  “Publishers give deadlines,” he says, “but I enjoys pictures so much that I could just do that.”  After an initial sketch or two, he watches what happens and experiments until things fall into place.  “Sometimes I’ll sketch a dream and then decide weeks later that it’s stupid.”

Sis has a new book coming out in Spring 2014 about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, pilot and author of The Little Prince.  As a boy, he was taken with “this beautiful book about how life can be.”  Many decades later, he was surprised to discover that the Frenchman wrote The Little Prince in New York during a period of great personal hardship.  The book was published shortly before he flew his plane to South Africa on a mission to liberate France and was killed.  Sis’ book, The Pilot and the Little Prince, is a tribute to his childhood hero and to New York.

Sis remembers spending many hours in bed curled up with books as a boy.  He is worried that with Google and iPads reading habits and attention spans are changing. “Now, in one minute, you can find out about Komodo Dragon.  When everything is known, what’s left?”  He hopes to help make the world better by encouraging kids follow their instincts and “become explorers like Marco Polo, even in their own backyards.”

TIBET-RED-BOX-COV-WITH-MEDALSWhere will his artistic road take him next?  Sis says that he dreams about doing a book without words.  Visual language is “amazingly universal.”

Sis is looking forward to the book festival on October 5th.  “If Westchester can keep the reading tradition that would be awesome.  Chappaqua is a beautiful place.  It’s wonderful when a community can come together.”

Anna Maslakovic is the web designer and editor for the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival.  She is working on a memoir and lives in Chappaqua with her husband and two young sons.