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Donna… look up!
By Derek Prezzano
North Shore Area Director
As the day began, I could tell this would be a new and memorable experience for most of the kids. Most if not all, had never ridden on a train, walked around Penn Station, squished into a subway, strolled the streets of the great City and through Rockefeller Center or gazed in amazement at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. None had ever seen the wonderful Christmas show at Radio City. If not for this day, most of these kids would have never had the chance to build this memory. Throughout the day as they stayed close to their mentor, their eyes were big and their anticipation was growing. Probably the winning, biggest eyes moment of the day goes to Betsy*. As Betsy ascended the stairs, exiting the subway and entered the streets of NYC for the first time in her life, she said to her mentor, ‘Donna...look up!’ That awestruck and amazed moment, accurately sums up the experience and feelings of most of the kids on that day.
Most of those “Donna… look up!” moments came during the Radio City Show. Certainly, the most powerful, influential and memorable moment came at the finale. With a complete, live Nativity filling the stage, the Essay “One Solitary Life’ scrolled across the transparent
Read more and photos from trip |
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One Solitary Life
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself.
While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life. | |
Wonderful Lives By Alice Ross, Area Director
Remember the theme of the classic Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life?” George Bailey thinks his life has been wasted, and an angel named “Clarence,” shows him what his world would have been like had he not been born.
I got to thinking how different things might be if Long Island Youth Mentoring had not been “born.” As our 25th year comes to a close and our 26th begins, there are 300 children currently being mentored, and thousands of adults who were mentored over the years as children. Some of their best childhood memories are preserved in our picture file; there are pages and pages of smiling faces, of kids obviously having fun. They are going down snowy hills in big, airplane inner tubes, Read more...
Attention!
Those 70 1/2 and older
New tax friendly giving opportunity
The Pension Protection Act of 2006 enables tax payers who are 70 ½ or older to make tax-free distributions of funds from their IRA or Roth IRA directly to a not-for-profit of their choice. These distributions will also count towards satisfying IRS mandatory withdrawal amounts. This is currently temporarily available for 2006 and 2007.
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