Five students from the Class of 2009 at Hoosick Falls Central School recently attended a networking day in New York City where they met with four professionals who shared stories about their careers, offered advice on how to be successful and pledged to stay in contact with the students to help them plan their college and post-college careers.
The five students – Mary Donohue, Nicole LaCroix, Samantha Merwin, Laura Stevenson and Ben Taylor – earned the trip to New York City after being named finalists for a scholarship offered by the JLS Foundation. The JLS Foundation which honors the memory of the late John Liporace Sr., was created to empower high school students at HFCS to realize their fullest potential by exposing them to a variety of career opportunities, connecting them to a network of career professionals and awarding them with the financial resources to pursue their careers. Each year the Foundation offers a networking opportunity to HFCS students entering their senior year.
The networking day was hosted by John Liporace Jr., Managing Partner at Taylor, one of the country’s leading public relations agencies, at his office in the Empire State Building. Liporace arranged for the students to meet with four professionals, who included Matt Lalin, Founder, StarPower, who has negotiated $100 million worth of marketing deals for professional athletes, Dr. Joyce Liporace, one of the country’s leading neurologists specializing in concerns for women with epilepsy, Ken Kencel, CEO of Churchill Financial, and Sean Swarner, the first cancer survivor to summit Mt. Everest. HFCS teachers Isabel McGuire and Chris Marsh escorted the students to New York.
Each of the four speakers shared stories of how they started their careers and what they felt were keys to success.
“Each of the speakers took different paths to success,” said John Liporace Jr. “The common theme was they were all chasing a dream to do something they love and the passion for their work helped them reach the top. Certainly, Sean’s story was a different one; it was more about survival and chasing your dream no matter what stands in the way.”
The 33-year old Swarner, who flew in from Boulder, CO, where he lives and trains, spent an hour with the students talking to them about the challenges he has faced including being a two-time cancer survivor, being twice told that he wouldn’t survive and then realizing his dream of being the first cancer survivor to literally reach the top of the world. Swarner, who co-authored the book Keep Climbing, signed copies of the book for the students and encouraged them to not lose sight of their dreams no matter what the obstacle.
Each of the students has been asked to write a 250 word essay about their experience in New York. One of the students will then be selected to receive a $1,500 scholarship and a matching donation of $1,500 will be made to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a national voluntary health organization dedicated to finding cures for Leukemia, Lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and Myeloma and to improving the quality of life of patients and their families. The donation will benefit the Upstate New York/Vermont Chapter of the Society, which services the Hoosick Falls area.
For more information about the JLS Foundation, log on to www.thejlsfoundation.org.