Category: New York City

community service, education, New York City, student

Step 253: Get Involved with Student Sponsor Partners and Change the Life of a New York City High School Student

Christa Avampato

I respect and admire nonprofits that create a huge impact in the world by making it easy for volunteers to make a difference. On Thursday, I went to a presentation by Margaret Minson and Faith Botica of Student Sponsor Partners (SSP), a nonprofit that helps at-risk, high-potential public middle school students get a private high school education in New York City. SSP pays the great majority of the tuition for the students while also providing them with a personal mentor to help them through their 4 years of high school at a private school. The results are impressive – 90% of SSP students go on to college. SSP currently has 1,400 students enrolled and over 4,500 graduates.

Mentors meet with their students about once per month, many times through SSP organized events where all of the SSP mentors and students get together. The content of the mentoring runs the gamut from help with school work, career, and college admissions to personal issues with friends, family, and relationships. Mentors play a critical role in the student’s life as 75% of them come from single parent homes in which those parents are working round-the-clock to provide for their families. The students often go without an adult who can guide them and mentor them through their high school years. That’s where SSP Mentors step in. Without SSP, most of these students would surely fall between the cracks and never even realize, much less achieve their potential.

Being a Mentor is an incredible opportunity to truly make a difference in the life of New York City high school students. Because of the incredible corporate sponsorships that SSP has fostered through the years, it is also a tremendous networking opportunity for professionals of all ages in New York City who want to meet other people who care about community service, education, and helping young people succeed.

A Mentor usually mentors the same student all the way through their high school years, though occasionally mentors have to drop from the program because of personal time commitments, geographic moves, etc. SSP is currently looking for Mentors for sophomore – senior high school students who have lost their SSP Mentors and want to build a relationship with a new SSP Mentor. I just signed up to hop onboard. If you’re interested, please visit the organization’s website. Attached to this post, you will also find the brief Mentor application forms. I hope you’ll join me in making a difference for high school students in New York City.

SSP Sponsor Application FINAL.

SSP LexisNexis Screening Solutions Consent Form

art, New York City, nostalgia, theatre

Step 240: Spiderman the Musical and Nostalgia for the Theatre

Christa Avampato

Yesterday I was in midtown to get a pie as a gift for my hosts this weekend. My pal, Dan, and I are heading to Philly for a weekend – our third long weekend of travel together. (The other two were to Portland, Maine and Nashville.) We’re staying with Dan’s friends and I’m bringing a pie from The Little Pie Company as a gift for them. I went to college in Philly and haven’t been back in a number of years. Dan has never been. I’m excited to see what we find – Philly holds a mix of emotions and experiences for me, some of the very best and very worst of my life.

As I headed back to the subway from The Little Pie Company, I walked by the theatre where Spiderman the Musical will open on November 14th. The stagehands were outside the stage door having lunch. I asked them if they were working on Spiderman, they said yes, and asked if I’d like a tour of the theatre. I gladly accepted.

It’s been a while since I’ve stood on a Broadway stage. It used to make me so nervous. I’d do whatever I could to avoid standing on the stage – I have had a life-long struggle with stage fright. Or at least I used to. Today standing on the Spiderman stage didn’t make me nervous at all. It kind of felt like going back to my hometown after being away for a long time. Some things were different and all in all it felt very familiar.

I know and understand all of the reasons I stopped managing Broadway shows. I’ve never considered going back. That was a chapter of my life that I’m so glad I had, and I’m so glad I left when I did. It was still the best business training I’ve ever had, and I was so fortunate to have that experience. But for just a split second, I imagined what it might be like to go back. I could feel the exhilaration of starting something new and unique, helping bring a new vision to delighted audiences. Maybe there’s a way to weave it back into my life, not in the same way as I did all those years ago, but in some new form that better fits my life and outlook today. I’ll mull that over and let you know what I find. I find it ironic that I would have this experience just as I’m heading to Philly, where I first considered a career in professional theatre, and on the same day that I received an invitation in the mail for a New York City theatre event sponsored by my Philly alma mater. Universe, what are you trying to tell me?

For the record, Spiderman is going to be a crazy, wild production. It will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen. That’s all I’m saying so as to protect the artistic integrity and the magic of life on the Great White Way. Grab some tickets before they’re gone!

goals, marketing, New York City, priorities, work, youth

Step 237: Do You Want to “Arrive”?

Christa Avampato

I always know that something is afoot in the universe when the subject of a conversation I have with a friend is echoed in a conversation I have at work the very next day. Last night I had dinner with my friend, Courtney, and we talked a lot about “arriving”, both in a professional and work sense. I met Courtney through my yoga teacher training and as new teachers we’re both trying to find our way through the complicated maze of the wellness industry. She and I are both contemplating full-time career moves as well.

We talked about relationships and living in New York City, a city whose residents strive to arrive in every aspect of our lives and yet are also always reaching for that next rung up. After all, most of us moved here to prove we could make it here, and therefore make it anywhere. (Thank you, Frank, for writing that succinct, poetic line to describe our complicated, collective goal.) Because we live in this delicate balance of thriving and striving, it’s hard to know when we’ve actually made it.

I work full-time as a product developer for a premium financial institution. Like many luxury brands, our brand halo has always had the understanding that once you carry our brand in your portfolio, you’ve made it big time. It’s a sentiment that’s served us well except for one tiny, recent glitch: many young people (young Gen X, Gen Y, and Millennials) don’t feel like they’ve made it yet and therefore don’t have a sense of belonging with our brand as they do with many others. It’s a tough nut for us to crack since we’ve spent over 100 years touting ourselves as aspirational and a recent market study showed that young people today are choosing to grow up later in life than previous generations. The real risk for us is that if we don’t grow loyalty among the youth segment now, we actually won’t be relevant to them once they do feel like they’ve made it.

I’m a cusp Gen X / Gen Y so I understand this mentality. In truth, I’m not sure that I’ll ever feel like I’ve arrived and a large part of me doesn’t want to feel that way. I live in New York City because I actually love striving, pushing my limits, and the feeling I get from growing, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, every day. Honestly, if you’re not interested in growth and change, I would recommend living someplace else. New York City is just too difficult a place to make your home unless you love to push yourself every day. I love New York City – I’m probably a lifer – but it is not for everyone and I understand why people choose to move. There’s no shame in that at all; it’s just a matter of priorities.

When I think about the youth dilemma facing my company, I think we’ve got one clear choice: Do you want to be a brand that rewards people once they feel like they’ve arrived at some idealized financial state or do you want to help people strive, accomplish, and push their boundaries no matter where they are on the “arrival spectrum”. That’s a very different kind of brand attitude that requires a new overarching brand strategy and quite a shake-up at my company. It’s a question worth pondering and acting upon – living in a state of limbo and identity crisis doesn’t help anyone, and in actuality it’s a sure-fire way to become irrelevant. Eventually, you’ve got to say “this is who I am” and be with the people who support that.

entrepreneurship, New York City, technology

Step 146: The Inspiring Story of Start-up My City Way

Christa Avampato

As a blogger I am constantly introduced to new, interesting people who are bringing their ideas to life. My friend, Erica Heinz, over at Yogoer.com recently introduced me to her friend, Sonpreet Bhatia, Co-Founder of My City Way. My City Way creates mobile phone apps that roll up 50+ hyper-local apps into a city-specific guide. Tailored for use by local residents and visitors alike, My City Way is a tour guide in your pocket.

From our first email, Sonpreet impressed me with her passion and ability to see beyond what’s already out there in the world. The mobile landscape is highly competitive with a constant stream of new competitors. Just when we think we’ve got our head wrapped around its potential, some entrepreneur mixes it up again with a new innovation. My City Way did just that in a big, useful way.

In February, Bhatia and Co-founders Puneet Mehta and Archana Patchirajan took home the prestigious Popular Choice and Investors’ Choice Awards at the NYC BigApps Competition for the company’s first app, NYCWay. Since then, the trio has launched a similar app in a host of other cities including San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston, and London. My City Way has also been busy working away on new features to delight its customers including a reservation service, discounts and deals on local merchants, up-to-the-minute public transit info, wi-fi locations, even apartment and job listings.

My City Way’s founders were focused on using technology to create something that would help local businesses manage through this difficult recession. They wanted to put something in the hands of tech savvy consumers that would direct consumer spending to local businesses, particularly those that don’t have lavish marketing budgets. Whether you believe in karma or the idea that there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, their ingenuity and drive paid off. With the success and rapid growth of My City Way, all three founders left their lucrative jobs on Wall Street earlier this year to focus on this startup. They never looked back and that keeps me looking forward, too.

My City Way is available for iPhone, iPad, and Android phones. For more info, check them out at http://www.mycityway.com

environment, nature, New York City

Step 52: Signs of Life

Christa Avampato

Yesterday I spent most of the day outside running errands and meeting up with friends. As I headed down Broadway in the morning, I could feel the Earth yawning and stretching. It was warm for a February day in New York City, 50 degrees. Birds were chirping, skies were blue. I breathed in, breathed out, and thought, “Spring, you are going to find us again.”

This has been a long, cold, tiring winter. Every once in a while I would see little sprigs of life popping up, trying so hard to bloom despite the hard ground, wind, and low temperatures. It was as if the universe was saying, “no, not just yet. Rest a little while longer.”

So I did. I had to put some ideas back on the shelf, some projects into my safe-keeping box, and wait for fairer weather. Yesterday, I felt like life all around me had turned a corner, was beginning to awaken and rise and be heard. And as a result, I felt life within me begin to rise, too.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

entrepreneurship, Examiner, New York City, technology

Examiner.com: My Interview with Adam Rich, Co-founder of Thrillist.com

Christa Avampato

Looking for the latest great place to dine, shop, or hang in New York City? Look no further than Thrillist, a free daily email with one fabulous suggestion after another. I recently had the opportunity to connect with Adam Rich, one of the co-founders, to get the inside scoop on their start-up.

Many thanks to Flavie Bagnol, Director of Communications, for making the arrangements for this interview. For the full interview, click here.

children, design, education, New York City, student

Step 9: Perseverance

Christa Avampato

“With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.” ~ Thomas Foxwell Buxton

I’ve known some people in my life who are so brilliant, so capable, and yet they never seem to reach heights that are well within their grasp. They toil away in jobs that aren’t quite right. They miss the opportunity for love, for community impact, for profound influence because they weren’t willing to put in just a bit more effort. My father was one of these people. He had a truly brilliant mind and could have been the leading clinical psychologist of his day. Unfortunately, he thought the world should reward him specifically because he was brilliant. He didn’t realize the world doesn’t work that way.

And then I’ve known people of fairly modest talent who were just relentless in their efforts, and achieved not only what was within their natural reach, but also successes that no one else thought possible. It’s the people in this latter group who have been my greatest teachers. They showed me that the world rewards those who work as hard as they can and give the best they’ve got everyday. The world rewards commitment, particularly commitment that perseveres in the face of great adversity.

I thought about this ideal this morning when I found out that my after-school education program with Citizen Schools starts the week of February 8th, not the week of February 25th as I had originally planned. This accelerates the time line I now have to work under. I’m going to have to shuffle around some other commitments so that my first few lessons plans are created and edited in time for the class. I’ve been collecting resources for several months and now is the time to just sit down and plow through the work.

And then I paused as I looked at all of these resources, most from designers of incredible talent. I appreciate design and use the tools of a designer in my profession as a product developer, though I am not a traditionally trained designer. I didn’t go to art school and I’m not an engineer. My product development skills have been self-taught. I’m a volunteer teacher, though I don’t have a degree from an education school and I don’t have a teacher certification. My teaching skills have also been self-taught. To top it off, I’ll be teaching in a school in East Harlem with more than its fair share of challenges: it is the lowest performing school in the Citizen Schools portfolio. 87% of the students receive free or reduced-price lunch (this is an indicator that 87% fall at or below the poverty line), 86% read below grade level, and 78% have math skills below grade level.

I leaned back in my chair, and asked myself, “What exactly are you doing, Christa?” But I didn’t ask this question with an air of despair or fear. I asked myself the question to mean, “What is the heart of the matter here? What gifts do you have to give these children who need you so much?” With that motivation in mind, any trace of trepidation disappeared.

I have modest design talents with extraordinary passion, empathy, and determination to back them up. I grew up below the poverty line, and still many adults believed in my talents and abilities. Now its my turn to manifest that same belief in these children. I’m paying forward the great and good gifts that so many people gave me when I was in school.

My idea to use design as the backbone to engage students in the learning process is not revolutionary; many people have thought of this idea, and many of them are far better designers than I am. No matter. There are so many children who need help, so many children who need an adult to show up for them and take a vested interest in their lives and education, that it is impossible for me to not have a profound impact in this field. My own individual commitment and perseverance is the only limitation on the amount of good I can do with this program, and I’ve got both of those in spades.

art, books, inspiration, New York City, theatre, travel

My Year of Hopefulness – Chasing Down Inspiration

Christa Avampato

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” ~ Jack London, author

Before 2009, I used to think of inspiration a something that just hits us. I kept a folder of inspirational pictures, stories, quotes, and clippings that I trolled through when I needed some uplifting thoughts and none seemed to find me. I believed in writer’s block and the mystical muse of creativity who decided if, when, and how to show up in our lives. No more. After a year of actively seeking out hope and writing about it every day, I believe in the Jack London method, my inspiration-chasing club always at the ready.

In New York City, we’re lucky that chasing down inspiration means just putting on a pair of shoes and walking outside our doors. Inspiration is everywhere. We have a host of amazing museums that I visit frequently (thanks to my employer’s fantastic perk that gets us into almost every museum in New York for free!) Central Park and Riverside Park are two blocks away from my apartment. Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off Broadway are burgeoning with some of the most inventive work to come along in decades. Bookstores are on nearly every corner, and there is no shortage of fascinating lectures, readings, and continuing ed classes in every subject, at every level. And if all else fails, just take a walk around the block, any block. You’re sure to find some characters.

In other cities, some much smaller than New York, inspiration abound as well. In Orlando, Florida, I found the largest collection of Tiffany glass in the world. In Charlottesville, Virginia, I had some of the best meals of my life. In my own hometown of Highland, New York, the view from the Catskill Mountains still takes my breathe away. In Providence, Rhode Island, I saw one of the finest productions of Moon for the Misbegotten that I’ve ever seen.

Inspiration is everywhere – all we need to do is get out into the world and look. We can travel thousands of miles from home, or we can hang around in our own backyard. What matters is the pursuit: do we want to be inspired and are we willing to “sift the sands of the desert to see what we can find,” as Clarissa Pinkola Estes says so eloquently in Women Who Run with the Wolves? If the answer is yes, then there are adventures upon adventures just waiting for us to hope on board. And if you can get your hands on a big club, that may help, too.
The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
gratitude, happiness, New York City, weather

My Year of Hopefulness – The Whisper of Snow

Christa Avampato

And the snow fell and fell and fell. Some people will hunker down during a snow storm, watch a movie, play a board game, read. And some of us will run out into that snow and feel proud that they didn’t let the weather get them down. The people in this latter group are insane, and I’m one of them. I made my way down to 36th Street for dinner with my friend, Monika, last night and then got across town in record time (underground) to my friend, Cindy’s, holiday party.

Cindy’s parties are always an interesting mix of guests, and I am guaranteed to meet someone (or 2 or 3 someones) new every time. With the company of Anderson Cooper’s lead cameraman to a talented animator to one of the head stylists at Bumble & Bumble, there is never a shortage of cool stories, laughter, and delicious cocktails and food. I like to bring someone along every time to further liven up the mix. This time I brought my good pal, Jeff, who is always very outgoing and loves meeting new people as much as I do. After a good number of hours of merriment, I decided to head back out into the snow and get home.

I stepped outside into a world of sparkly white. The snow was breath-taking. Maybe the first snow fall always has a magical quality to it, though last night’s snow seemed to be something special. I never saw it glisten that way (and no, it wasn’t the candy cane eggnog I had at Cindy’s!) It felt like I was in a movie, as if a painter had taken a brush to my life and made everything around me glow.

So how would I get home in this foot of snow? At that time of night the subway is slow and I would have needed 2 transfers to get home anyway (getting across town in New York is rarely easy!) Cabs were getting stuck and spinning out everywhere I looked. Buses were no where to be found. My mom said to me that when she lived in New York, her best mode of transportation was a good pair of shoes. I had two inches heeled boots, and still I thought of her quote and didn’t think twice about making the hike on-foot. On a nice day, it would be a good, relaxing walk. In the snow at night, it would require a little more willpower and caution. I was up for it.

I skipped over and through the snowbanks, wound my way along the 79th Street passage through Central Park, and the whole time thought about how beautiful this city is. It was so quiet that I could actually hear the snow falling. The sky had a pink tint to it. The cold wind had died down. I felt a huge wave of gladness.

It was my next to last night in New York for 2009 since I’ll be leaving for the holidays in Florida on Monday. This snowstorm was a little gift for me, and I could swear I heard the world whispering, “Yes, you made it. You can file away 2009 as a year of experiences that opened your life to new possibilities, a year when so much fell away so that you could find new ways forward. This year, in a time of great loss, you received the opportunity to re-imagine and re-craft every area of your life. Put this chance to good use.”

When the subways are crowded, the streets are jammed, and the noise reaches levels you never thought were possible, New York can frustrate even those of us who love it most. It’s times like last night, in that beautiful, mystical snowfall, that remind of how much of a home this city is for me, how much of a home it will always be for me. There is a certain crackle of life that lives here, and I feel blessed to live among it.

The image above is not my own. It was taken by Seth Wenig/AP.

children, education, New York City, teaching

My Year of Hopefulness – It Takes A Village, or an Army

Christa Avampato

I’ve been having a great time in Florida with my niece, Lorelei. I can hardly believe that she’ll be 2 in January. I wrote about her on this blog the day that she was born and she has appeared a number of other times in my posts. It’s fun to watch her learn and change. My sister and brother-in-law are tired pretty much all the time – Lorelei is always on the go and always curious. She’s also somehow inherited insomnia from my mom and I.

While many people say that it takes a village to raise a child, I’d add that it requires a very large village, or in many cases an army. It’s amazing how many things Lorelei gets into. Everything from electric outlets to cabinet doors to chairs that are a tiny bit too tall for her. She needs feeding and changing and washing and activities that teach her reading, her colors, her numbers, etc. And the list goes on. She needs an eye on her constantly.
Lorelei is lucky – she has so many people in her life who watch out for her, who love her, and take care of her. Every day, I think about how lucky she is, and how many kids are not so lucky. I think about how many kids don’t have a village much less an army. Some don’t have anyone at all. This is where we can all come in.
This Fall, I had the opportunity to volunteer teach at one of the best high schools in New York. When I told a friend of mine about the choice I had to make to do that assignment or work on my own program in East Harlem, she said, “Christa, those kids in that high school are fine. They don’t need you. They have plenty of advantages. Whether or not you’re there won’t matter to them. It will matter to those kids in East Harlem. Go where you’re needed.”
Every day, we have a chance to be a part of a child’s village, and it’s most important for us to begin building a village for kids who don’t have one at all. This might be the greatest challenge of our time. We can be that village, that army, with a small donation of time or money or concern. If we have any interest at all in the future of our planet, in the future of our own children, we have to stand up for other kids who need us.