submitted by the JLS Foundation
Five students from the Class of 2012 at Hoosick Falls Central School (HFCS) recently attended a networking day in New York City where they met with five 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 – Matty Blair, Lauren Conte, Brendan Gleason, Emily Hoag and Mike Merwin – 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 five professionals, who included Ken Kencel, President and CEO of Churchill Financial, 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, Kent Rhinehart, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Marist College and Sean Swarner, the first cancer survivor to summit Mt. Everest.
Each of the five speakers shared stories of how they started their careers and what they felt were keys to success.
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 $2,000 scholarship and a matching donation of $2,000 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. The students can also participate in a community service project approved by the JLS Foundation Board. If they do, the winning student will receive an additional $2,000 toward the scholarship for an overall total of $4,000.
For more information about the JLS Foundation, log on to www.thejlsfoundation.org.
