Five students from the Class of 2010 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 – Andrew DiDonato, Maeghan DiMaggio, Megan McEachron, Kelsey Rogers and Erin Shea – 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 Sean Kaylor, Vice President of Admissions and Enrollment at Marist College, 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 and Sean Swarner, the first cancer survivor to summit Mt. Everest. HFCS teacher Chris Marsh and Guidance Counselor Phyllis Currao 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.
“One of the new additions to the line-up of speakers this year was Sean Kaylor from Marist,” said John Liporace, Jr. “As the head of admissions at a selective college, Sean was able to provide the students with great insight about the college admission process and how to best position yourself for acceptance into the school of your choice. I think it provided a very practical benefit for everyone in addition to hearing life lessons from all the speakers about how they were able to become very successful.”
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 the Foundation’s newly-designed web site at www.thejlsfoundation.org.