#b#Plainsboro Ballet Dancer Competes in Indianapolis#/b#
Abigail Anthony, 15, a homeschooler in Plainsboro, competed in the first Indianapolis International Ballet Competition in June. She qualified for the competition by sending a video of herself doing a classical variation from “Don Quixote.”
Anthony, who has been studying at Princeton Dance and Theater Studio for a year, began her training at the School of San Francisco Ballet. Her performing experiences have included the role of “Clara” for Radio City Christmas Spectacular in 2012 and leading roles with Princeton Youth Ballet. She was most recently seen as the Robin in “The Secret Garden,” choreographed by Risa Kaplowitz, director and artistic director of PDT.
“Getting into the competition itself is an honor,” says Kaplowitz. “Abigail was coached and judged by some of the most famous dancers and teachers in the world.”
The coaching has been ongoing for several months. “Risa Kaplowitz’s attention to every detail has refined my skills, and I feel as though I have grown tremendously as a dancer this past year,” says Anthony. Visit www.indianapoliscityballet.org for information.
#b#First Place for North Money$peak Team#/b#
A team from High School North took first place at the inaugural Money$peak Competition, presented by the Mercadien Foundation and Rider University. The Untraceables, presenting on identity theft, were advised by teacher Albert Paulsson. Team members include Gleb Bourtsev, Brandon Kocher, Sam Lichtenstein, and Adam Srikantha. The team earned a $1,500 team award, and a $1,000 school grant for personal finance education.
“The New Jersey Department of Education took a big step forward when they made a half-year course in personal finance a high school graduation requirement. Now, the Mercadien Foundation seeks to keep that forward momentum going in order to insure every student has a solid understanding of the basics of personal finance when they leave high school and enter their next stage of life,” says Christopher Seiz, executive director of the Mercadien Foundation. “With Money$peak, students must fully understand their topic area before presenting it. With greater, long-lasting understanding, we build a generation of young adults who take charge of their financial future and excel in their chosen fields.”
The challenge was to create a short, innovative presentation based on a specific topic area from the high school personal finance course and present to a panel of high-profile judges from the finance community. Teams of two to four high school students used the information learned in the classroom to create everything from PowerPoint presentations to animated videos and rap songs to creatively express their personal finance lessons to judges and audience members on stage at Rider University’s Bart Luedeke Center.
“I cannot thank the Mercadien Foundation enough for the opportunity provided for our students,” says Paulsson. “The experience was one they will always remember and the skills and teamwork required to compete will build their confidence and success in the real world. The students were congratulated in school by so many of their teachers and peers. We’re definitely looking forward to participating again next year.”
Student presentations may be seen at www.moneyspeak.org for use by educators as they teach these areas of personal finance, bridging the gaps in financial education, and creating a central clearinghouse for education material distribution.
#b#Welcoming Women#/b#
Two West Windsor residents are members of the board of Newcomers & Friends, an organization for women who have moved to the area from across the ocean or across the street, or who simply want to explore new interests while making lasting friendships.
Mala Motupalli moved to West Windsor from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and has been a member of Newcomers since 1997. She is the organization’s outgoing social vice president, an office she filled for two terms, and a former president of the women’s group. An avid reader, she also chaired “Books by Moonlight,” one of the club’s evening interest groups. She and her husband, Prasad, have two grown sons.
Paula Schlinger is a Dallas native who moved to West Windsor from Orlando, Florida. She joined Newcomers & Friends in 2012 and served on the welcoming committee last year. She will now serve as recording secretary. Trained as an anthropologist, Schlinger has spent her career managing fundraising and marketing programs for non-profit organizations. She and her husband, Jim, have two grown children.
Newcomers & Friends offers monthly meetings on a wide variety of subjects along with social coffees, dozens of interest groups, and special events. Visit www.ywcaprinceton.org/newcomers.
#b#Grant Established#/b#
Keeping Babies Safe, a non-profit organization that promotes safe sleeping practices for infants, has completed the distribution of 80 safe cribs to low-income families in New Jersey through the support of the F.I.S.H. Foundation based on Market Street in Plainsboro. The grant money supports “Project Safe Crib,” in which KBS purchases cribs that meet the highest safety standards and donates them to low-income families on a national scope. Over the past year, the cribs were brought to the families and set up by staff members from area health and human services agencies. All families receiving cribs were educated about safe-sleep practices for their babies.
“Without the support of such generous supporters as the F.I.S.H. Foundation, KBS would not exist,” said Joyce Davis, president and founder of the Warren-based organization, who lost her four-month-old son to a preventable portable crib accident. These new cribs have helped prevent infant deaths and injuries that can occur from unsafe cribs.”
Davis said unsafe cribs are the leading cause of death and injury among all juvenile products. In the last two years, there were 138 infant deaths associated with cribs and baby mattresses. The majority of deaths are from adding extra bedding in the crib.
“Families are so grateful to receive a new crib,” Davis said. “The crib is easy to set up, safe, and is small enough to fit into a tiny apartment, a shelter, or a motel room where many reside. These new cribs will help prevent infant deaths and injuries that can occur from unsafe cribs.” Visit KeepingBabiesSafe.org for more information.
#b#For This Girl Scout, Kindness Counts#/b#
Katie Giminaro, a rising senior at High School South and a Girl Scout with Troop 70871 in Plainsboro, is completing her Girl Scout Gold Award, “Be a Friend — Kindness Counts.” She gave presentations to the students at Wicoff and Town Center elementary schools and completed all the requirements for her gold award project.
“The purpose of the program is to teach young people about the value of friendship and kindness,” she says. “In our highly competitive school district, the need to compete and be better than the next student causes some children to regard their abilities higher than others. These kinds of behaviors can hurt another person’s feelings, damage friendships, and negatively impact a person’s relationship with their peers. My hope was that by working with these students and helping them to better understand what it means to be a compassionate and caring friend would help to prepare them as they move up to the upper elementary school and beyond.”
Giminaro has been a member of Girl Scout troop 70871 since first grade. Her troop leaders are Tephanie Meiers and Laurie Renz. Meiers was her project adviser and Ellen Incollingo, a guidance counselor at Wicoff School, was her mentor for her project. “I have received a lot of positive feedback from the students and teachers at both elementary schools as well as the guidance counselors,” she says.
Giminaro will train more students at High School South to help with the project in the future. She will work with Chelsea Allen, the student assistance counselor and anti-bullying specialist at High School South.
“Both guidance counselors at Wicoff (Ellen Incollingo) and Town Center (Erica Anas) mentioned how excited the younger students were when they have older students from the high school come over to meet with them,” she says. “The younger students loved the skits that the volunteers and I put on and really liked the colorful posters that I created to reinforce the concepts that I was teaching them.”
“I believe the best way to support the program is for parents in the district to reinforce the point that while it is important for their child to do his or her best in school, it is also important to be a kind, caring, and compassionate individual,” says Giminaro. “It is just as important to be a considerate and caring person as it is to be the best student or the best athlete or best musician. Parents can do this by modeling kind and compassionate behavior to others and reminding their children that people come in all shapes, sizes, and abilities. Everyone should be valued for the content of their character, not just for how well they can perform.”
#b#Plainsboro Singer Records Memorial Tribute#/b#
Olga Talyn of Plainsboro recorded “As If We Never Said Goodbye” on an album dedicated to the late Kevin Gray, a longtime actor on and off Broadway who died in 2013. Beth Ertz, a former resident of West Windsor, did the arrangement and orchestration. She also played the piano while Talyn sang.
The album, created by Gray’s wife, Dodie Petit of Princeton, was produced as a memorial to her husband. It features more than 30 numbers with Broadway stars and was based on a memorial show held at the Majestic Theater in NYC. The album features entertainers and Broadway stars including Bebe Neuwirth, Len Cariou, Norm Lewis, Rebecca Luker, Hugh Pinero, Judy Kaye, and others. It also features casts of Broadway shows including “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Miss Saigon,” “Les Miserables,” “The Lion King,” “Titanic,” and “The King and I.”
Recorded across the country with live orchestration from Nashville to Los Angeles and of course, New York City the album is engineered by Grammy winning recording engineer Butch Jones.
“It gives me such joy to be able to showcase the incredible talents on this CD,” says Petite. “Among the well-known names, there are also dozens of the most wonderful performers who work all the time, yet have not had the opportunity to be on an original cast CD or had the chance to make a first class recording of themselves. And it gives me such pleasure to capture them and share their great gifts with the world. Kevin would have loved that.”
The CD is available on iTunes, Amazon.com, and www.KevinGrayFoundation.org. Proceeds from the CD will go to musical theater scholarships at Duke University and The Hartt School at the University of Hartford.
#b#WW-P Students Participate in First CJSIA Contest#/b#
Central Jersey Student Innovators’ Association held the culminating presentation session and awards ceremony of their first Innovation contest, which asked students of all ages to submit proposals for businesses, products, and services that could be viable in today’s market. At the Fields Center on Princeton University campus, the top three applicants were able to present their ideas to a panel of judges comprised of IT professionals, local entrepreneurs, and college engineering students, similar to ABC’s “Shark Tank” presents venture capital — except without millions of dollars on the line.
The CJSIA, as it is known, is a completely student-founded and operated educational organization dedicated to exposing students to the fields of entrepreneurship and engineering at the high and middle school levels.
“We realized that more than half of our friends are interested in STEM and business as they pursue college educations, but there is virtually no practical education in either engineering or entrepreneurship in our schools,” says Rishiraj Tripathy, a rising senior at High School South and co-founder of the group. “To bridge this gap, we started the CJSIA.” Separate from scholastic entities, the association is able to reach wider audiences of interested students, not constrained by age or location.
Three main programs the CJSIA undertakes are presentational skills development classes, where students learn how to present their ideas effectively and speak publicly in relatable scientific and entrepreneurial settings; guest lectures given by a wide range of professionals including Princeton University entrepreneurship professor Mung Chiang, who is an engineer by practice, and Chris Kuenne, who sold a marketing company for $575 million in 2011 and is now CEO of his own VC firm; and the Innovation Contest.
“In class teachers always tell us to make presentations, but we’re never taught how to do so,” says Greg Petrov, a rising sophomore at High School South. “This class did a great job of telling us not only what to present, but how to present it.”
Arya Sasne, a rising seventh grade student at Grover Middle School; Saanika Kulkarni, a rising eighth grade student at Grover; and Abhinav Raghunathan, a rising junior at High School North, were finalists in the Innovation Contest. They presented on concepts including smart greenhouses, uplifting dolls, and crowdfunding campaigns for nonprofits. The students utilized presentational skills synthesized through the classes the CJSIA teaches and coupled them with lessons learned from guest lecturers to wow judges, parents, and peers alike with their in-depth research on the venture of their choice.
The founders of the organization are filling a growing niche of career education by exposing students to the fields of business and science to assist with students choosing college and career paths by connecting with their community and engaging with students from grades 6 to 12 in its 100 percent free programs.
#b#A Big Thank You#/b#
Congregation Beth Chaim has supported HomeFront for many years by cooking dinners, providing bagged meals, and snacks, as well as Thanksgiving dinners, organizing toiletry and diaper drives, and supplying back to school clothes and supplies. Congregants cook and deliver more than 50 family style dinners on the last Wednesday of each month to Educational Testing Service for students, tutors, and staff involved in the HomeFront tutoring program,” says Holly Singer, a resident of West Windsor and the organizer of the program.
These initiatives are led by Beth Chaim’s Tikkun Olam committee, whose motto is “Making the World a Better Place One Mitzvah at a Time.” HomeFront’s group of students, tutors and staff showed their appreciation for Beth Chaim’s dinners with a big thank you poster displayed during the latest tutoring session at ETS in May. Visit www.bethchaim.org for more information.
#b#Vice President#/b#
Sanjeev Agarwal of Plainsboro is the new vice president for the Society of Indo-American Engineers and Architects, an organization of professionals of Indian origins. He was sworn in by the Deputy Consul General of India, Manoj Kumar Mohapatra, in a recent ceremony in Edison attended by state Senator Linda R. Greenstein, D-Middlesex/Mercer, and Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu.
“It is an honor to accept a position of great responsibility with such a fine organization representing so many of my fellow Indian-American professionals,” said Agarwal, president of Princeton Engineering Services and a member of the Plainsboro Planning Board.
The SIAEA is a non-profit with nearly 800 members around the country. It helps other Indian-Americans who are in the engineering and architectural professions as well as those interested in entering the field. The Society has awarded more than $200,000 in scholarships since its founding in 1981.
“I’ve known Sanjeev for a long time and he’s always been active in the community and extremely civic-minded in the town of Plainsboro, so it is fitting that he is as dedicated to his profession and taking on new challenges,” said Greenstein, also a resident of Plainsboro. “The Society will be in good hands with Sanjeev’s knowledge and expertise in working within organizations for the greater good.”
#b#In College#/b#
Clemson University: Amy Victoria Lee of West Windsor is on the dean’s list. Alexander David Campbell, a special education major from West Windsor, is on the president’s list.
Elizabethtown College: Samantha McNulty of West Windsor, a graduate of the Peddie School, is a rising freshman.
Hofstra University: Hannah Richman of Plainsboro graduated with a bachelor of arts in public relations.
Lafayette College: Graduates include West Windsor residents Sarah Devery with a bachelor of arts in anthropology and sociology, and Kyle Frascarelli with a bachelor of arts in government and law.
Loyola University Maryland: Rae Correne Reyes of Plainsboro is on the dean’s list.
University of New Hampshire: Zachary Hundertmark of West Windsor is on the dean’s list.
University of New Haven: West Windsor resident Daniel Espinosa is on the dean’s list.
College of New Jersey: Students from Plainsboro on the dean’s list include Kristen Solis, Michael Chen, Li Ling Liang, Katelyn Baker, Grace Jeong, Anne Carenina Balicusto, Kendal Borup, Jacqueline Holder, Lalitya Karra, and Alyssa Avino.
Students from West Windsor on the dean’s list include Isabel Bryant, Diana Befi, Joanna Ju, Jessica Geevers, Teresa Akkara, Thomas O’Connor, Maria Dicindio, Jaedi Gambatese, Kaitlyn Grant, Zainab Rizvi, Rachel Oertel, Selena Seto, Abdul Kazi, Luqian Liu, Ranjitha Vasa, Sushmith Ramesh, and Julie Bradley.
College of New Jersey graduates from West Windsor include Debosree Samanta, Diana Befi, Teresa Akkara, Jared Meltzer, Clifford Weekes, Jaedi Gambatese, Selena Seto, Julie Bradley, and Abdul Kazi. Graduates from Plainsboro include Bijal Desai, Rebecca Alabastro, Anne Carenina Balicusto, Meredith Fine, Kendal Borup, and Jacqueline Holder.
Vassar College: Molly Brossman of Plainsboro — who writes the occasional Suburban Teen column for the News — graduated with honors. She double majored in political science and French and earned distinction for her senior thesis on the French-Algerian war. She also received the Jane Dealy and Woodrow Wirsig Memorial Prize in recognition of her accomplishment and promise in the field of journalism.
Pratt Institute: Lydia Tam of Plainsboro resident is on the president’s list. Plainsboro residents on the dean’s list include Veronika Avloshenko, LaDell Bligen, and Mallika Ramachandran.
University of Rhode Island: Tiffany Gagliardo, a rising senior, is on the dean’s list and was recently inducted into the honor society for nursing. She graduated from High School South in 2012. Graduates include West Windsor residents Hannah A. Loeb with a bachelor of music, cum laude; and Kelsey L. Sandgren with a bachelor of arts in psychology.
Rowan University: Rachel Gagliardo of Plainsboro is on the dean’s list. A rising sophomore, she is majoring in English and special education. She graduated from High School South in 2014.
Springfield College: Kevin Nowak of Plainsboro earned a bachelor of science degree in psychology.
Western New England University: Kevin J. Worrall, an accounting and finance major from Plainsboro, is on the dean’s list.
Williams College: Eric Davis of West Windsor is on the dean’s list. A rising junior majoring in economics and a starting guard on the football team, Davis was recently elected co-president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and was selected to be a member of the Williams Gargoyle Society.
William Paterson University: Students on the dean’s list include Erika Navarro of West Windsor and Drazen Lightburn of Plainsboro.
