The Emily C. Specchio Foundation

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Emily C. Specchio Foundation!

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Stay tuned for more details!

The Emily C. Specchio Foundation is calling all visionary NJ youth to apply for our 2010 Ambassador program. This program awards grants to young people with big ideas on how to give back – whether it be locally or internationally.

What are we looking for?
The Emily C. Specchio Foundation is seeking New Jersey residents aged 18-25 with a clear vision for a community outreach project to be started/completed within a year of this grant. The project can be designed to help others either domestically or internationally.

How does the Ambassador program work?
The Emily C. Specchio Foundation is looking for inspired young people to embody our mission. The ambassador will clearly state to the Foundation their project goals and mission along with an estimated timeline and funds required. The Foundation will provide mentoring support to the ambassador to help set up a blog or website and fundraise for their cause. The ambassador must present their project ideas and progress at a minimum of five venues (schools, organizations, churches, etc.) in the New Jersey area including The Emily C. Specchio annual “A Night with an Angel” banquet in May 2011. The Foundation will provide funding to the ambassador for the project (minimum $1,000) and will match money raised by the Ambassador for one year 2 to 1 up to $5,000.

For more information and the 2010 application, please visit our Ambassador page.

A big congratulations to this year’s selections for the Spring 2010 Emily C. Specchio Memorial Scholarship at Virginia Tech. Four winners were chosen this year from a very strong application pool, and each will receive a $1500 scholarship to help pay for their study abroad semester in the spring to Lugano, Switzerland.

Here are this year’s winners along with highlights from their resume/application:

• Emily Glotz: Marketing/Management major, Leadership minor at Virginia Tech. Committee chair of Pamplin Leadership Development Team, Volunteer at Gilbert Linkous Elementary School, Business Horizons Volunteer, Winner of Pamplin College of Business Merit Scholarship
• Nick Wells: Marketing Management major, International Business

  minor at Viginia Tech. Committee chair of G.E.R.M.A.N. Club of VPI, Relay for Life participant, Business Horizons Volunteer, Habitat for Humanity volunteer, Virginia Tech Orientation Leader.

• Kelsey Vitori: Marketing Major, Global Business/Business Leadership Minor at Virginia Tech. Hokie Ambassador, Volunteer at Gilbert Linkous Elementary School, Virginia Tech Orientation Leader, Business Horizons Hospitality Chair, Organized fundraisers for Cardiac Care for Women.
• Cory Williams: Communication Studies/Public Relations Major, Business Minor at Virginia Tech. Relay for Life Volunteer, organized fundraisers for the Make-a-Wish Foundation, volunteer at Gilbert Linkous Elementary School, Participant in the Virginia Tech Literacy Corp Pen Pal Program, Locks of Love donor, Philanthropy Board member for the Association for Women in Communications.

The Emily C. Specchio Foundation has teamed up with New Jersey Junior Achievement to sponsor 5 inner city high school girls who are active in volunteer work in their community to attend a Women’s Future Leadership Forum. The mission of this forum is to introduce high school-aged female students from under-served communities to today’s female role models and deeply impact these women who have great potential to succeed.

The Women’s Future Leadership Forum will occur on November 20th from 8:30am to 2:00pm and involves over 50 high school girls and 50 adult role models spending the day together in Murray Hill, NJ. The participating high school girls are all from Trenton, Rahway, or Linden and have all volunteered through the New Jersey Junior Achievement high school heroes program.

The high school heroes program gives high school students the opportunity to volunteer with Junior Achievement at a local elementary school to teach financial literacy and work readiness. The program is a powerful team-building experience as well as a memorable community service project for the volunteers who serve as mentors and role models to the students.

We are proud to be a part of such an amazing opportunity for these young women! Below is the day’s full itinerary:

The Emily C. Specchio Foundation is proud to announce the inaugural Emily C. Specchio Ambassadors. We started this program this year to encourage and support youth who have big ideas to make a positive impact on communities in need, whether it be local or international.

Our 2009 Ambassadors are:

• Vincent Caldas
• Timothy Mernar
• Kevin Tolentino

All three ambassadors are seniors at St. Peter’s Preparatory School in Jersey City New Jersey

The winner project idea: “The Prep Micro-bank: A Student Driven Philanthropic Enterprise”

(excerpts from the winning proposal are below)

• “Students from St. Peter’s Preparatory School in conjunction with our Campus Ministry plan to give funds in the form of no-interest loans so that recipients in impoverished nations can use the principal to begin a business that will contribute to growing a local economy and to get on their own two feet.”

• “The [loan] recipients will be members of communities where Jesuit and Jersuit volunteers serve, for instance, Micronesia, Nigeria, and Ecuador. These no-interest loans will provide much needed principal for people to start their own enterprises and secure their own means of income, which they will then use to pay back the original loan. This will allow us to continue awarding these loans using only our primary investment.”

Vincent, Timothy, and Kevin will receive $1000 up-front from The Emily C. Specchio Foundation, and will additionally receive 2:1 matching funds (up to $5000 total) for speaking engagements designed to inspire youth to make a difference.

... the winners of our first ever Emily C. Specchio Ambassador award will be announced THIS WEEK! We will be posting the winning project idea along with the bios of the winners right here on our home page.

Also of note:

• SAVE THE DATE! The 4th Annual “A Night with an Angel” will be held on Monday May 3rd, 2010.

• Check out our newly funded Kiva Entrepreneurs! We fund young women in their 20’s that are taking initiative to raise out of poverty around the world.

• We are currently in the process of selecting this year’s Emily C. Specchio Memorial Scholarship recipients at Virginia Tech. We are pleased to report a very strong group of applicants again this year!

• We have 2 new initiatives support mentorship in the pipelines. One will involve working with a Blacksburg Elementary School in which Emily once volunteered, and the other will involve sponsoring young women active in community service to attend a Women’s Leadership Conference.

• Finally, a new scholarship will be added to our yearly support of youth making a difference. We have partnered up with the New Jersey Community Development Corporation (NJCDC) to fund an annual scholarship given to high school youth showing excellence in academics and community service.

We have been so busy this year adding new initiatives and supporting our established programs all in line with our mission of helping youth make a difference in the world.

Thank you for your continued support!!

Author Krista Tibbs has made The Emily C. Specchio Foundation her featured nonprofit during the month of August for her book: The Neurology of Angels.  This means $2 of every book purchased will be donated to the foundation.

Neurology of Angels Synopsis:
Every day a choice must be made between saving one child and treating thousands. Galen is a neuroscientist and entrepreneur who loses everything to develop a cure for stroke. Eddy is a devoted father who enters politics on a mission to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Elizabeth is a pharmaceutical industry lawyer who is raising a daughter with a rare and fatal genetic illness. Their families become forever entwined as the three parents engage in a tug-of-war over a failing system of good intentions. In the wake, heroes are born.

To purchase the book, visit www.neurologyofangels.com

**Krista also interviewed Emily’s sister Kate about the Specchio Family and the Emily C. Specchio Foundation on her blog. The interview can be found here. **

Please visit our photo gallery to view pictures from the “Night with an Angel” benefit event on May 4th.

Thank you to all who helped make this event an overwhelming success! We look forward to another year of making a difference in Emily’s memory.

Emily C. Specchio Foundation “A Night with an Angel” T-shirts are now available for sale online!

To order, please visit here!