Young people can enable nonprofits to make a difference. If their involvement is managed well, the experience can not only impact the youth’s life, but also the organizations they serve. A positive experience now may commit them in the future. How do we find them? How do we engage them? How do we ‘get’ them and they us? How do we transmit the passion? This panel of experts who work successfully with young people will share their best practices for engaging the youth of today for the nonprofits of tomorrow.
Facilitator: Leontyne Anglin, Principal, Staging Executives Media Production & Design
Panelists:
Cristiana Ciobanu, Case Manager & Summer Program Coordinator, RISE, A Community Service Partnership
Carl Clark, Founder & Executive Director, Urban Promise Trenton
Karen Freundlich, Girl Scouts
Judy Salcewicz, Service Coordinator, Notre Dame High School
Biographies:
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Leontyne Anglin is principal of Staging Executives Media Production & Design firm and director of a nonprofit organization that provides marketable life skills to teens (including older youth in foster care) through media education and service leadership.
A former corporate executive, she has run statewide programs for more than 15 years engaging youth from virtually all backgrounds through film and television production. Completed projects have been showcased at film screenings and currently air in a regular timeslot on Princeton Community Television where she serves as executive producer.
By establishing effective public-private partnerships, she has led youth service initiatives from Community Engaged Learning Projects with The College of New Jersey Bonner Center to Sports Media Camps with professional athletes and broad scale projects for the largest single-day corporate volunteer effort in the nation with Comcast NBCUniversal.
Leontyne is a member of the Media Independence Television Community Advisory Board and has served as a Judge for the WHYY-TV Youth Media Awards since 2012. Through her webinars, workshops, and e-books, she has helped numerous organizations bridge the gap between youth, community, and major corporations by implementing successful day-of-service projects.
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Cris Ciobanu, a dynamic, multilingual youth coordinator for Rise | A Community Service Partnership, started as a case manager in 2011 and quickly realized that her passion is to work with youth. Born and raised in Romania, Cris immigrated to the United States eight years ago. She graduated from high school and earned her Associates Degree in Global Studies. Her strong dedication to creating global change led her to the nonprofit world and youth development.
Cris innovates and implements youth programs in suburban school districts in Central New Jersey. Her goal is to empower all youth to realize that their actions can lead to impactful changes in their own communities and around the world. She does so by engaging youth after school and during the summer months to create teen-led service projects.
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Carl Clark, a native of Camden, is the co-founder and executive director of UrbanPromise Trenton. At the age of seven, he was one of the original campers at UrbanPromise Camden and knows firsthand the life-changing impact of the UrbanPromise model. Carl rose to the level of StreetLeader (a paid mentoring position), thriving despite a difficult home life. He went on to receive a business degree from The College of New Jersey.
Although successful in banking, Carl felt that his life’s purpose was to give back to the community by fostering hope in the next generation. After learning of a particularly violent gang crime in Trenton, Carl was impelled to provide the children there with the same opportunity that had made such a positive impact on his life. In 2011, he left banking to launch UrbanPromise Trenton, which now provides afterschool and summer programming, including tutoring; homework help; leadership training and employment for teens; arts and recreation, and faith-based teachings. Their goal is to operate in all four wards of Trenton.
Carl was recently asked to participate in the Path to Impact Program at the Princeton Area Community Foundation. He is also a proud member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity.
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Karen Freundlich is a consulting engineer who also has extensive experience in volunteer roles with youth, especially in Scouting. A Gold Award Girl Scout herself, she began leading Girl Scout troops when her daughters were in kindergarten. Over the course of eleven years, she has served her local Girl Scout Council as a troop leader, registrar, Girl Leadership Award committee member, and manager of the Princeton Unit. She also is a den leader for Cub Scout Pack 1880. Serving in these roles has given her insights into the operations and strategies that youth organizations need to thrive in today’s ever-changing environments as well as how engaging youth in the direction of the organization’s future can determine whether it will fully accomplish its mission.
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Judy Salcewicz, Service-Learning Coordinator at Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, founded the school’s service program in 1981. It continues to grow and improve each year, with the enthusiastic participation of 1300 students who regularly quadruple their service-hour requirements. Annually, average cumulative hours have been over 52,000. Judy currently teaches Theology and Service-Learning Honors classes. She worked with students to develop an anti-bullying program that has been presented at many area schools. She mentors students to become community service leaders and helps ignite their passion for service.
Judy received the Robert F. Clancy Award for Outstanding Service Volunteer from the Princeton Area Council of Community Services in 1991. She had a leadership training article published in Teaching Tolerance Magazine and was awarded an Anti-Violence grant from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Judy participated in a Bearing Witness Workshop in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League. She was Teacher of the Year at Notre Dame High School for the 2014-2015 school year.
Judy, who lives in Lawrenceville, earned her Masters of Education from The College of New Jersey. She also completed a class in stand-up comedy, which helps her identify with the students she asks to leave their comfort zone.
