East Harlem Center Keystone Club Honored at National Boys & Girls Club Conference

April 13, 2009

Children’s Aid’s East Harlem Center’s Keystone Club has just returned from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s National Keystone Conference in Atlanta, where they were honored with a total of four awards for their inspiring activities.

The teens and their chaperones had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, winning two first place awards, one second place and a special advisor of the year award for Midge Caparosa.

In the category of Character and Leadership Development, the teens won first place for their successful efforts to have a traffic light installed at a dangerous intersection in their East Harlem neighborhood. In recognition of the teens’ fundraising activities, the club won a first place award in the category of Free Enterprise for creating By Kids Ink, a greeting card company. The second place award, in the Education and Career Exploration category, came for their mock news program dealing with education.

EHC Keystone Club member Stephanie DeJesus was selected through her participation in the Latino Outreach Initiative to meet with Roxanne Spillett, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, at the conference. She was one of about a dozen teens who had the opportunity to share their thoughts on teen programming at the Clubs. Stephanie and Meagan Gonzalez, another teen involved in the EHC’s Latino Outreach Initiative, also taped a commercial about the Initiative for Univision.

The teens returned home from the conference excited about the people they met and experiences they shared and ready to tackle their next projects.

Photo: Two Boys & Girls Club youth (far left and far right) presented an award to Children's Aid Society East Harlem Keystone Club members (left to right) advisor Midge Caparosa, Mikal Edwards, Selia Washington, Michael Medina, Dominique Giordano, center director David Giordano, Meagan Gonzalez and Stephanie DeJesus.