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| Waiting for the bus on Lexington Avenue. 11:30 PM. Photo: Jeff Hirsch. |
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| Wednesday, September 18, 2013. It’s almost Autumn in New York, and with yesterday's temperatures dropping into the mid-50s by mid-evening yesterday, it’s beginning to feel like it. The Social Season is beginning to reflect it too, with the calendar chock-a-block with events. Last night at Cipriani 42nd Street, New Yorkers for Children hosted its 14th annual Fall Gala honoring Nicholas Scoppetta and Benefiting Youth in Foster Care.
What is remarkable about Mr. Scoppetta is that all of that isn’t the half of it. His path in life, it would seem, led him to affect the lives of thousands and thousands of children in Foster Care to brighter, sustainable stable lives of personal achievement and accomplishment. Not a few of them were in the room last night. He was born on the Lower East Side in 1932, the youngest son of Italian immigrants struggling in the Great Depression. When he was four years old, his parents turned him and his two older brothers over to the city’s care. Initially the boys stayed in a shelter on 104th Street, and then they were separated. About a year later they were reunited by chance in a dentist’s office. It was his brother Tony who recognized the five-year-old Nicholas. Eventually the three boys ended up in a group home in Bronx called Woodycrest, which is now an AIDS hospice. Woodycrest, Mr. Scoppetta recalled last night in the recounting of his early life, was a saving grace for the child. |
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| That time – between leaving his parents’ hearth and care, and moving to Woodycrest in the Bronx was deeply difficult for the little Nicholas, as he recalled, still deeply touched by the memories more than seven decades later. Being with his brothers, and living in circumstances where he was cared for and felt cared for, was an enormous relief for the child. When he was twelve, in 1944, the brothers were reunited with their parents. We hear about Foster Care but if we haven’t been personally experienced it, we don’t know about the emotional impact is has on an already painfully deprived, entirely dependent child. To us it is a thing, a process, an institutional umbrella for what is in stark reality, a deeply troubling sentence for any child. Furthermore many children in Foster Care are placed there by law enforcement because of horrendous abuse, negligence and poverty. They are already beaten down before they are fully formed. |
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| Unless reminded, we can easily forget or ignore how defenseless all children are in an abusive and neglectful household, or in a sea of institutional care devoid of love and affection, not to mention the inevitable sense of futility that smothers. Most adults cannot handle such circumstances without deep suffering. Children surviving it is nothing but miraculous. Nicholas Scoppetta, however, had the natural fortitude, assisted by the care of those looking after him in Woodycrest, and his brothers, and eventually the abiding sense of family, to survive. He graduated from High School in 1950, served in the Army for two years, and with the GI Bill graduated at 26 with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1958. The following year he won a New York State Regents Scholarship and attended Brooklyn Law School at night. During the day he assisted in the investigation and prosecution of cases in which children had been abused and neglected. In 1962 he graduated Law School and his path, as we can see in retrospect, was laid out for him. |
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| He told us last night that currently of those in Foster Care, no more than 9% of the children made it to college and less than 2% of them graduated. Today 90% of the youth in NYFC's "Guardian Scholars" program graduate from college. Not a few people believe that Nicholas Scoppetta’s personal experience and his vision of what could be possible has made that difference. Last night he also reminded those of us who never realized it or have forgotten it, that all of us need meaningful personal relationships to succeed in life. Last night’s gala, attended by several hundred, including many people who are prominent in charitable circles here in the city, is now a major social and philanthropic event in New York. Scoppetta and Burden and their executive director Susan Magazine and their volunteers have created a very successful organization that has raised and distributed more than $50 million to benefit youth in foster care since 1996. The evening is now traditionally hosted by some of the exceptional young people whose lives have been changed because of their involvement in NYFC. The difference, as one of the student hosts reminded the guests last night is that “no one becomes someone without anyone.” NYFC provides that anyone and many “someone’s.” |
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| It’s a heart-rending and joyful evening, energized by the enthusiasm of its supporters. Gala Co-Chairs were Donya and Scott Bommer, Susan Burden, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, Oscar de la Renta, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Lise and Michael Evans, Deborra-Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman, Susan and Tony Gilroy, Erika and Kevin Liles Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos and Paul Kanavos, Candice and Scott Posner, Kelly and Jay Sugarman and Lauren and Justin Tuck. Among the Vice-Chairs and guests were Mayor Michael Bloomberg who opened the evening praising the Commissioner and his work, Frederic Fekkai and Shrin von Wulffen, Rebecca Minkoff, Adriana Lima, Crystal Renn, Selita Ebans, Lindsay Ellingson, Hilary Rhoda, Nigel Barker, Jules Asner and Steven Soderbergh, Annelise Peterson, Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict, Alina Cho, Susan Shin Debbie Bancroft, Nicole Esposito, Pia and David Ledy, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and David Wolkoff, Amada and Jonathan Ellian, Julie Macklowe, Zang Toi, Martin and Jean Shafiroff, Gillian and Sylvester Miniter, Jay Diamond and Alexandra Lebenthal, Muffie Potter Aston, Tatiana and Campion Platt, Geoffrey Bradfield, Eric Brettschneider, John Demsey. |
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| Jamie Niven, Executive VP of Sotheby’s conducted an auction. This year marked the 10th Anniversary of the Spirit Awards, a $10,000 scholarship awarded annually to a young person in foster care. North Shore LIJ Health System sponsored two Spirit Awards in honor of the 10th Anniversary.
NYFC works in partnership with the Administration of Children’s Services to improve the prospects of children supported by the child welfare system. It supports programs promoting paths to stable adulthood through education and sustainable relationships with caring adults. There are nearly 13,000 children in foster care in New York City today and New Yorkers for Children is committed to providing them with the essential tools to become successful, self-sufficient adults. What is amazing is hearing the stories these young people share about their abusive beginnings and seeing how NYFC’s work has motivated, directed and infused them to become stable, dynamic, productive and confident young adults who bear the qualities and characteristics of future leadership – like their supreme mentor Mr. Scoppetta, in their chosen fields of interest, and in their personal lives. The message is the same in all of them, to all of us: It Can Be Done. |
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Contact DPC here. |