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Category Archives: Uncategorized

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REGISTER FOR THE 2019 POOL SEASON TODAY!!

Posted on February 15, 2019 by Nancy Alberts

REGISTRATION FOR 2019 RNH POOL SEASON IS NOW OPEN!

To Register for the 2019 Pool Season you may fill out the following forms:

2019 RNH Pool Registration Form

Please mail or drop-off your registration form and signed 2019 RNH Pool Rules with check or a CreditCardForm  to the following address:

Riverdale Neighborhood House

5521 Mosholu Avenue

Bronx, New York  10471

Posted in Uncategorized

Master Your Creativity At RNH: Learning To See Through Drawing

Posted on January 22, 2019 by Nancy Alberts

 

Master Your Creativity At RNH!
 
Drawing Class Now Available:
Learning To See Through Drawing
 
A wonderful opportunity to learn from the best!
Work with a range of materials exploring volume and perspective through additive and reductive 
drawing techniques, honing your drawing skills 
and building visual vocabulary
  • Pencil (contour, cross hatching, and shading with pencil)
  • Charcoal (create a ground, build volume, and experiment with texture)
  • Ink (explore the immediacy of India ink, cross hatching, contour lines, stippling, and washes).
 All skill levels welcome! 
Appropriate for both experienced 
and beginner artists.
 
Instructor, Zach Seeger, is a highly accomplished artist with many solo & group shows. He is the director of This Friday or Next Friday gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn and also teaches drawing at the 92nd Street Y. Friendly and talented, Zach is the perfect  instructor to learn from.
 
January 23, 30, February 6 and 13
Four two hour sessions, 7 – 9 pm
 Fee: $99
Don’t miss this opportunity. Space Is Limited
REGISTER NOW!
 
 
 
 
Posted in Uncategorized

Take A Survey To Help Us Improve Future Classes At RCC!

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Nancy Alberts

Click Here And Take A Survey About RCC AYEC Classes!

Posted in Uncategorized

RNH Partners With “Kids In The Game” For A Brand New RNH Camp Experience!!

Posted on January 10, 2019 by Nancy Alberts

 

Visit The Kids In The Game Website To Find Out More and to

Register for Summer Camp 2019!

https://kidsinthegame.com/riverdale-summer-camp/

 

Posted in Uncategorized

2018 RNH Winter Appeal

Posted on December 11, 2018 by Nancy Alberts
 
DONATE NOW!
 
Dear Friend of RNH,
 
RNH has a long history of providing high quality pre-school education to children in NYC. Since the expansion of Universal Prekindergarten (PreK For All) in NYC and the extension of the preschool day to be a full school day, now, more than ever, early childhood programs need to be exemplary in offering rigorous, yet hands on, enjoyable instruction for young children.
The cost to maintain such a high level of quality exceeds the funding we receive from both the Department of Education and from tuition, and so we must rely on the support of the community to help make up the difference.
It is only through the generosity of the community and people like you that we are able to make sure our children continue to be among the best prepared in the City.  I hope that this holiday season you will consider a gift to RNH which will help support our children. 
 
Yours In Community,
 
Dan Eudene
Executive Director

DONATE NOW!

Posted in Uncategorized

Register Today For RNH’s 3 on 3 Basketball League For Children Ages 10 through 13

Posted on November 29, 2018 by Nancy Alberts

 

3 on 3 Basketball League
for
Children Ages 10 through 13
Saturdays: 
February 16, 23rd,March 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 & April 6th
5pm till 9pm
 
League Details:
8 Game Season
8 Teams, 1 Champion
5 Player Maximum
 
League Fee:
$200 per player
Includes Full Uniform
 
Mail Your Check 
To RNH
5521 Mosholu Avenue, Bx, NY 10471 
 
INSTRUCTOR: Coach Mike Barnes
For More Information
Email: info@calfindustries.com
Or Call
718.549.8100 ext. 125

Posted in Uncategorized

Find Out More About RNH’s Annual Benefit Honorees, Alison Pavia and Franz Paasche

Posted on November 8, 2018 by Nancy Alberts

* Honorees Alison Pavia and Franz Paasche *

Is there something in the air of Riverdale that imbues its residents with community spirit? Alison Pavia and Franz Paasche think so.

How else to explain the selfless contributions of so many of their neighbors or their own willingness to give back so much to their neighborhood, their city, their world — sometimes adding hours of volunteer work to an already busy work life, often making service to others less fortunate than themselves their full time jobs.

With a growing family in 1995, the Manhattan couple began searching for a new home. The greenery of the suburbs beckoned to Franz, but Alison was hesitant. “Riverdale was just about as far from Manhattan as I was willing to go.” she recalls.

Franz had grown up in Toronto and spent his formative years in leafy Vermont at the illustrious Putney School — his father’s Alma Mater — and attended Swarthmore College in suburban Philadelphia. He had been drawn to Riverdale’s natural beauty on visits to his cousins.

Though Alison — a graduate of Brown — considered herself a confirmed Manhattanite, as a teenager at Riverdale Country School she had developed a soft spot for the area. But it may have been Franz’s Putney connection that sealed the Riverdale deal for the couple. He had served on that school’s board with fellow alum Sarah Gund. She invited the couple to tea with her parents, Gil and Sally Kerlin — then the unofficial first family of Riverdale.

In a recent interview Alison recounted Gil’s admonition: “You’re coming to Riverdale!” he said flatly.

It took a while, and a lot of prodding from realtor Marcie Heymann, for the couple to decide on a house, but as soon as they did, Marcie began another sales pitch. She was the president of the Neighborhood House board at the time and she was always on the lookout for new volunteer talent.

Alison was familiar with settlement houses — her mother had been on the board of Hamilton Madison House on the Lower East Side — and she expressed mild interest in getting involved with RNH. That was all Marcie needed. “I never even submitted a resumé,” she laughed, “and the next thing I knew I was on the board. It was meant to be.”

It didn’t take long for Alison to have an impact. “I had a kind of apprenticeship on the development committee, with Cathy Weinroth and Sarah Gund” she said, “and we put together an endowment fund,” even when many thought it just wasn’t possible.

By the time she ascended to the Presidency of RNH in 2005, she had developed a fruitful working relationship with Executive Director Dan Eudene. Together — with expert help from United Neighborhood Houses — they spearheaded a “painful process” of creating a long-term strategic and fundraising plan for the organization and envisioned a new building to upgrade the teen center and house expanded programming for every age group.

Alison was able to devote so much of her time to Neighborhood House because she had put her career as an attorney specializing in international corporate and banking law on hold while raising three daughters, but by 2004 she was ready to reenter the workforce. That’s when she got a call from former Riverdalian Jack Rosenthal asking her to become the founding executive director of a unique new non-profit called ReServe which concentrates on finding stipended part-time jobs at schools, hospitals, government agencies and community organizations for “people in the second half of life.”

“The jobs have meaning and compensation,” Alison explained, adding that “RNH gave me invaluable knowledge of how the non-profit world in New York works.”

ReServe has now grown to be a nationwide agency and aims to place more than 100,000 applicants by 2030.

With ever expanding horizons, Alison’s scope has gone from intensely local, to citywide, to national, to global. With a brief pause after getting ReServe off the ground, she became the executive director of the Peter C. Alderman Foundation in 2009. The Alderman family had created it in memory of their son, tragically killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11.

An ABC Nightline program had alerted them to the difficulties of millions of people around the world who had directly experienced torture, terrorism and mass violence and who had such traumatic depression that they could no longer lead functional lives. The foundation now works to heal these victims by training indigenous health workers and establishing clinics in Cambodia, Uganda, Liberia and Kenya, treating thousands of patients. “If we could bring these people back to life in Pete’s name, what better memorial for him than that.” his mother told the Huffington Post.

Combining her expertise in job creation with her knowledge of the world’s conflict areas, Alison is currently applying her skills in a new direction. As Executive Director of the Harpswell Foundation she has taken on the task of developing women leaders in Southeast Asia. According to Harpswell’s website, “We provide housing, education, critical thinking skills, and leadership training for young women in Cambodia, and offer leadership training to young women from throughout Southeast Asia.”

Several Riverdale families have visited Cambodia at Alison’s urging to get a firsthand view of her program in action and she’s hoping more will follow.

Currently, Alison also serves on the boards of ReServe, Riverdale Neighborhood House and S’Cool Sounds, and on the Advisory Board of Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging and Longevity of Hunter College. She’s also a trustee of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

Though they met when they were still students at Columbia Law School, Alison and Franz took somewhat different career tracks. A fascination with politics and public policy led Franz to work with the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And the opportunity to work with Ted Sorensen, a key advisor to President John F. Kennedy, took him to one of New York’s top law firms — Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

In 1994, when the chance arose for Franz to become general counsel to Market Data Corporation, he took it. The company was a leader in developing the field of providing real-time trading data to brokerage houses. The job also provided him with the flexibility to become more involved in his daughters’ school and more broadly in community service.

Later, as a crisis communications consultant with Clark and Weinstock, he recalls, “I was embedded in [New York Schools Chancellor] Joel Klein’s school reform initiative” and found himself handling crisis and reputation management during the Great Recession for a wide variety of firms and institutions facing new challenges.

It was not a stretch for him to take on a job in 2005 combining his legal talents and his flair for communication at Communications Consulting Worldwide. He, too, was now on a global stage, helping corporations, public institutions and non-profits with a wide range of communications and “reputation management” issues. 

His work with CCW led to new global opportunities, first with a position at McKinsey and Co., one of the world’s largest consulting firms, in 2010, where he became the head of external relations and reputation management for North America, and currently at PayPal, where he is Senior Vice President for Corporate Affairs. “That includes,” Franz explains, “global government relations and public policy, communications, reputation risk management, social innovation and community engagement.”

“It’s gratifying,” he added “to be fulfilling our overarching mission to democratize financial services, serving the underserved, providing safe and affordable digital financial services around the world to people who may not even have a bank account.”

But even with such a high powered resumé he, too, has been generous with his time, beginning with more than 25 years of service on the board of The Putney School. He also leant valuable expertise to Riverdale Neighborhood House, organizing and leading multiple board retreats. And as a board member of the Brennan Center for Justice he is working  (as stated on the center’s website) for the defense of “the rule of law and the values of Constitutional democracy, focusing on voting rights, campaign finance reform, ending mass incarceration and preserving liberties while also maintaining our national security.” The center’s work, Franz says, “has never been more relevant.”

Here in Riverdale, Gil Kerlin saw to it that Franz got involved with the Riverdale Nature Preservancy. With Peter Kohlmann he became co-president of the vital environmental watchdog, helping to recruit a new generation of leadership, introducing the RNP’s first website, expanding membership and taking on challenges like advancing the Greenway, and addressing the outsized development of institutions seeking to expand within the Special Natural Area District.

Together with Alison he serves on the leadership council of Wave Hill and somehow the couple found time when their children were young to help found Congregation Tehillah with a group of other like-minded Jewish families in our community.

Busy schedules and world travel aside, family is paramount to Alison and Franz. All three of their girls went to Fieldston and all three interned at Neighborhood House. In order of age, Simone is a jewelry designer with a studio in Brooklyn, Cecilia is in medical school in Tel Aviv and Eleanor is a junior at Maine’s Bowdoin College, although she’s currently experiencing a semester abroad in Malawi.

Alison and Franz are both children of refugees (Italy, Germany and France) and one reason for their peripatetic lifestyle, they say, is to keep up with their family diaspora around the world. In addition, Franz explains, “it has framed how we see the world” and, perhaps, why the couple is so willing to get involved with worldwide projects to aid those less fortunate than themselves.

Nevertheless, there’s no place like home and they are cognizant of how lucky they are to have forged such “deep, deep friendships in so many parts of Riverdale: its schools, its organizations and the Jewish community.”

With satisfaction Alison and Franz assert, “You can live a life of many chapters in Riverdale.”

View More Photos From The 2018 Annual Benefit

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Telephone Reassurance – Staff Birthday Visit to a Ninety-Seven Year Old Client

Posted on November 8, 2018 by Nancy Alberts

Telephone Reassurance Program

Staff Birthday Visit to a Ninety Seven Year Old Client

Written by: Zenobia Kelly, TRP Program Coordinator

 November 6th was a joyous day for both a 97 year old Telephone Reassurance (TRP) call recipient and for RNH TRP staff. The TRP Program members wanted to visit one of their clients, Mrs. A, at home, on her 97th birthday and were determined to do so!

The Telephone Reassurance Program (TRP) is a volunteer-driven program at RNH that addresses the needs of homebound seniors in our community and throughout the Bronx. The TRP is managed by Program Coordinator, Zenobia Kelly and has a staff of ten trained volunteers. The purpose of this program is to provide daily phone calls to homebound older adults to make sure they are safe. This is a vital service for vulnerable and isolated seniors in the community. These calls are often the only social contact that many of the clients served by the program receive.

Recently, Zenobia Kelly and her volunteer staff introduced a Birthday Club for their clients and it has really “taken off.” Zenobia relayed that the elders are always so excited and appreciative to receive a lovely card and recognition on their birthday. “They always call to express their gratitude.”

Mrs. A’s daughter, who is unable to visit her mom due to her own health issues, was delighted to give Ms. Kelly and the TRP volunteers permission to visit her mother on her 97th birthday. “We bore gifts of a fruit basket, flowers and a cake and went to CO-OP City and knocked on Mrs. A’s door.”

Mrs. A was so excited and extremely happy for the visit. “She invited us in and hugged us all while she expressed her gratitude and appreciation for us and for RNH.” One volunteer stated that “she is blind so hugging us all meant the world to her…as well as to us!”

The RNH TRP staff gave her gifts and sang “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”. Mrs. A said a prayer of appreciation “May God bless you all for coming and remembering me on my 97th birthday and may God bless the Riverdale Neighborhood House and may they continue to do this wonderful work.”

Ms. Kelly noted that “although it was pouring rain outside, we had bright sunshine indoors with Mrs. A; it was a happy, joyous day for Mrs. A and for all of us from the Riverdale Neighborhood House Telephone Reassurance Program.”

 

Posted in Uncategorized

West African Dance Class Taught by Alvin Ailey School of Dance Faculty Member

Posted on November 8, 2018 by Nancy Alberts

The Health and Harmony Programs

at Riverdale Neighborhood House

WEST AFRICAN DANCE!

Instructor: Maguette Camara

Faculty member of The Alvin Ailey School of Dance

is coming to RNH to teach West African Dance!

New Class – December 4th @ 7PM

Maguette has performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the World Trade Center Jazz Festival, the Rolling Stones World Tour, the Broadway performance Angelique, has appeared on NBC, praised in The New York Times, Good Day New York and much more!

A joyous way to stay fit, African Dance is a total-body workout which uses every part of the body and strengthens every muscle group!

This will sell out. Sign up now to reserve your spot!

Sign up online 

. $20 in advance/$25 at the door.

Questions? Email radelman@riverdaleonline.org or call 718

Posted in Events, Uncategorized

HAVE YOUR CHILD’S BIRTHDAY PARTY AT RNH!

Posted on October 23, 2018 by Nancy Alberts

Let the Party Place Staff help you set-up and clean-up for your child’s birthday party at RNH!

We will provide all you need to have a great celebration!

FOR MORE INFO EMAIL: birthdays@riverdaleonline.org

or Call 718-549-8100 and ask for Doreen or Kathy Duffy

 

Posted in Uncategorized

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