:: Friends Academy ::

Contact Us:
Alex Edwards-Bourdrez
Assistant Director of Development for Alumni Relations & Giving
Alumni@fa.org
516.676.0393

Carl Pozzi
Director of Development
Carl_Pozzi@fa.org

Liz Durante ’06 Put her EMT Skills to Practice During Spring Break in Uganda

Liz Durante ’06, who won the Community Service Award her senior year, spent spring break in Kaberamaido, in rural Uganda, to do medical work on the ground (she is a trained EMT). A rising junior at Connecticut College, she and a group of EMTs from Vassar College treated hundreds of people for various medical diseases like malaria, dysentary, and tuberculosis. Liz produced a video of her experience and posted it on YouTube.A pre-med student majoring in psychology, Liz wrote an article about her experience.

Steve Witthuhn '01 Featured in 31st Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

Steve Witthuhn '01 is featured along with former FA math teacher Alec Dick in ESPN The Magazine's online video about the 31st Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, held recently in Brooklyn. The two were among more than 700 contestants in the event, moderated by New York Times puzzle editor and NPR regular Will Shortz. Click on the picture to launch the video. Steve is the contestant with the hat bought on eBay. You'll recognize Alec, who offers choice commentary along the way. (Is that Alec taking a photo of the winning puzzle?)

Elias Roman ’02 Named in BusinessWeek's Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25

BusinessWeek magazine has selected Elias Roman ’02 as one of the Top 25 Entrepreneurs of the Year under 25 years old out of more than 300 nominees! Profiled with his business partners, Elias is co-founder founder of Amie Street, an online music retail site for independent musicians. The enterprise has taken off since its October ’07 launch, thanks to an innovative rating system that determines price according to demand, and a unique consumer-reward system.

UVa Doctoral Student Scott Barton ’94 Develops Robot Instrument

Scott Barton ’94 and two University of Virginia graduate-school cohorts are building robots that perform avant-garde musical compositions. That caught the attention of the Charlotteville, VA, Daily Progress, which recently ran a feature on the project. The technology’s ability to play a variety of modern music puts it on the cutting edge.

Molly Fox '04 Wins Scholarship for Doctoral Study at Cambridge

Molly Fox ’04, currently a senior at Yale, recently received the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship, a full-cost award for graduate study and research in any subject available at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The scholarships are highly competitive -- there are only 45 US recipients this year -- and are awarded to citizens of any country outside of the UK on the basis of the candidate's academic excellence, a good fit between the Scholar and the University of Cambridge, evidence of leadership potential and a commitment to improving the lives of others. As explained in an article in a recent issue of the Yale Daily News, Molly will pursue a three-year doctorate in biological anthropology at Cambridge, a field in which she has been conducting research as an undergraduate. She will focus on the immunological conflict between mother and fetus. (Note: Molly pointed out that the article erroneously references "amino-genetic;" the term should read "immunogenetic.")

Molly first became interested in biology at FA in Jennifer Newitt's AP Bio course. At Yale her interest shifted to biological anthropology, studying not only how the human body works, but why it functions the way it does, why and how it evolved to be this way, and the current adaptive pressures facing our species. Her undergraduate research at Yale allowed her to skip the master’s program and directly enter the doctoral program. Molly received news of the award after she had been working tirelessly on her senior project as a theater studies major, an updated, musical version of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," which received a rave review by the Yale Daily News.

Chad Goodridge ’97 in Passing Strange on Broadway


Photo by Nick Suttle

Chad Goodridge ’97, along with his fellow cast members in the new musical Passing Strange, is featured in a Playbill news article about the show's opening on Broadway at the Belasco Theater, February 8, 2008. The play, which enjoyed a successful Off-Broadway run at the Public Theater this past summer, has been named one of the best plays of 2007 in a recently compiled anthology. Chad is one of seven actors who perform the book and lyrics by singer-songwriter Stew, who teams with Heidi Rodewald to provide the accompanying music. Click here to read the full article. Tickets are on sale now.

Olivia Dreizen '03 and Project Linus Featured in Newsday

Newsday ran a great article in December 2007 on Olivia Dreizen '03, who has continued the community service she began with her senior-year Independent Service Project with Project Linus, a nonprofit with a mission "to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer "blanketeers." Through Project Linus, children have been wrapped in the comfort of Liv's beautiful, hand-made quilts for years. Incidentally, Liv shares her quiltmaking expertise with her artist mother and fellow FA alum, Lis Dillof Dreizen '78, also mentioned in the article. Huntington Town Councilwoman Glenda Jackson spotted the story on Liv and honored her at a Town Board meeting recently. Click here for the entire article, including a nice photo of one of the quilts.

Newsweek Honors Benita Singh, Class of 2000

On the Cover of Newsweek Magazine: Benita Singh '00 and Ruth DeGolia wearing beaded necklaces made at a women's artisan coop in Guatemala. Benita and Ruth are co-winners of Newsweek's "Giving Back Awards" in the Under-25 category. They won for their work in founding and directing Mercado Global, a nonprofit enterprise that markets hand-made crafts by women from underprivileged countries. Profits are invested in the education of children in the women's home towns. The crafts are available online at www.mercadoglobal.org.

Inaugural Giving Back Award in the Under-25 Category Recognizes Entrepreneurial Effort to Help Women Artisans in Underprivileged Countries

Locust Valley, NY…July 2006…Benita Singh, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harjinder and Inderjeet Singh, of Sands Point, NY, and a 2000 graduate of Friends Academy (Locust Valley, NY), is a winner of Newsweek magazine's inaugural "Giving Back Awards." Singh is pictured on the cover of the July 10, 2006, issue of Newsweek, along with several other winners from 15 separate categories. The awards recognize the extraordinary dedication of those "who use fame, fortune, heart and soul to help others."

Singh and Ruth DeGolia, her co-winner in the Under-25 category, were chosen from hundreds of nominees for their work in founding and directing Mercado Global, a nonprofit enterprise that markets hand-made crafts by women's artisan cooperatives in underprivileged countries, including Guatemala, Mexico and India. Profits from the worldwide sales of the crafts are invested in the education of the women's children.

In addition to the emphasis her parents put on social responsibility and the importance of understanding other cultures, Singh credits the education she received at Friends Academy, a Quaker Pre-k-12 school in Locust Valley, with leading her to develop the moral consciousness and call to service that she heeded in forming Mercado Global.

"The value that Friends Academy places on social service has always provided me with perspective as to how I want to give back in my professional career," Singh told an assembly of Friends upper school students this past school year. "It is these values, combined with the resilience of the women of San Alfonso, Guatemala, that inspires the work of Mercado Global." The effect of that work has been impressive. Gross sales of the crafts have multiplied more than six fold in two years and are projected to top $600,000 this year. Children in the countries where the cooperatives are located reap the benefits in the form of scholarships, computers, new school buildings - and the list goes on. Profits also go toward ensuring fair wages for the women who produce the crafts.

"Benita is a shining example of how so many of our current and former students are following the Quaker principle, 'Let your life speak,'" observed Friends Academy Head of School Bill Morris. "Hers speaks loudly: the worth of one's talent and effort is immeasurably enhanced when dedicated to service to others."

Just two years out of Yale University, where she earned degrees in Comparative Literature and International Studies, Singh is no stranger to accolades. After founding Mercado Global with DeGolia following their senior-thesis trip to Guatemala, Singh was named among the "World's Best Emerging Social Entrepreneurs" by the Echoing Green Foundation. The International Youth Foundation named her one of the "World's Outstanding Youth Leaders," and the Social Enterprise Alliance cited her as a "Leader in Innovative Ideas." She also serves on the Advisory Board of the World of Good Development Organization. Mercado Global's online catalog of artisan crafts, which includes scarves, necklaces, pottery and other apparel, is at www.mercadoglobal.org.