Sara K Thompson: Advocating for her Students

Sara K Thompson (RHHS ‘96)

Please meet another one of our inaugural ambassadors, Sara K Thompson (RHHS ‘96)! During the 2015 grant cycle, Sara advocated for an organization called Youth On Their Own (YOTO), and the Foundation provided close to $5,000 in program support to the non-profit. YOTO is a drop-out prevention program that seeks to help homeless youth stay graduate high school.

Learn more at yoto.org

Sara got involved in the organization when she was teaching high school math and drama and discovered that some of her students were homeless and received help from YOTO. Sara started to learn more about the organization, which provides “supplementary assistance for homeless teens in school through a mini mall where they can get food and other items such as paper or hygiene products. They also provide grade-based stipends to reward academic achievement and provide bus passes to assist students who do not have a car.” At the time this grant was provided, an average of $1,260 was provided per student through the monthly stipend program. Additionally, YOTO provides access to special needs and emergency services, including additional financial assistance and free medical care. Sara said that “homelessness is a larger issue in Tucson than I realized,” and that YOTO does “amazing work to reach out and support teens that are in danger of leaving school because of having nowhere to live. Being a teenager is hard enough without having to worry about where to sleep, how to shower, or how to get to and from school.”

Sara graduated from Frostburg State University in with a degree in Theater Arts. She currently works as a Program Facilitator at Kitt Peak National Observatory Visitor Center, in Tucson, AZ.

Mia Michaelides: First Time Ambassador Dives Right In

Mia Michaelides, RHHS ‘17

Mia Michaelides (RHHS ‘17) joined our ambassador cohort in 2018 and jumped quickly into her advocacy work. Mia is currently a sophomore at Fraleigh Dickinson University majoring in Business Administration and Human Resources. On campus, Mia is involved with a sustainable entrepreneurship student group called Enactus, and is currently serving as their Vice President. Through Enactus, Mia became connected with the Emmanuel Cancer Foundation (ECF), and was “motivated to work with ECF because of their incredible work supporting families dealing with the immense financial and emotional burdens of pediatric cancer.”

This past grant cycle, the Ascienzo Family Foundation provided a $5,000 grant to ECF to help out families with costs of housing, car payments, transportation, and medical expenses while they care for their child. As Mia described in her grant application, families with children who have cancer are faced with difficult and urgent financial needs, and ECF helps these families out with assistance outside of the hospital care. ECF provides over 220 New Jersey families with in-home counseling, material assistance, and emergency financial assistance through their Family Assistance Fund. We were excited to learn more about their work, and be able to contribute funds to increase the number of families ECF can serve!

Mia also plays lacrosse at FDU and talks about her community service involvement here (thanks for the shout-out, Mia!).

Winter Greetings

Warm thoughts your way, as we endure the frigid temperatures!

January has  historically been our "time away" period to reenergize and reflect on previous year's activity. This past month has been no different, with the exception of a well-spent Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the 21st. A few of our local ambassadors (Emma Donahue, Brenna Dolan, and Tess Rothwell) assisted at the Community Center where Bard College sponsored a Day of Engagement in conjunction with the Center's Repair Cafe. The Ambassadors helped Chef Larry Anthony (you may remember hearing about him from the No-Cost Food Market in November), the Food Director for the Red Hook, Rhinebeck, and Pine Plains School Districts, prepare nutritious soup and salads for the public who visited the pop-up café.

Our participation was a nice follow up to the Nourish Your Neighbor Food Campaign from the fall, and we’ve loved every opportunity to engage more with Bard Center for Civic Engagement, the RH Community Center, and all the community members who came by during the event. There is enthusiasm among our local partners and ambassadors to keep pursuing additional healthy food programs. This could take many forms, such as a Chef Cook-Off, partnering with sustainable food delivery systems like FeedHV, continuing education through our Garden Club program grant at Mill Road Elementary School, or senior assistance at the Community Center. We'll keep you posted, and if you have any ideas, please send them our way!

Robinson Greig: Advocating for Fresh Food in Boston

Class of 2015 Ambassador Robinson Greig

Inaugural ambassador Robinson Greig (RHHS ‘09) has found several ways to get involved in Boston since studying Mechanical Engineering at Northeastern University. When he first joined the Foundation, Robinson advocated for Resilient Coders, a group that works to “spread code literacy to communities traditionally underrepresented in technology,” and believes “in social justice through economic empowerment.”

For the past three years, Robinson has advocated on behalf of Fresh Truck, a group that provides mobile healthy food markets to those who need it most in the Greater Boston Area. He says, “Working with the foundation has encouraged me to get more involved with these organizations. I'm always looking out for more ways to help Fresh Truck continue to grow; whether that means connecting them with advisors and sponsors, volunteering at their events, or batting ideas back and forth with their team.” This year, the foundation provided a $5,000 grant to Fresh Truck’s new program, Fresh Connect, which, “makes it possible for healthcare providers and other organizations invested in the health of communities to prescribe food as medicine.” The program has gone through a successful pilot version, and the Foundation’s grant will enable FreshConnect to enroll an additional 60 senior households.

Robinson is currently a graduate student at Harvard Business School.