Hope For Youth

2016 Annual Awards Dinner and Celebration!

On June 14th Hope For Youth hosted their Annual Awards Dinner at the Hilton Hotel. This special event was held to recognize the many accomplishments achieved by the youth and their families who are served by Hope For Youth.

This year’s guest speaker, Judge Marlene Budd shared with us her inspiring story as a foster child and how she overcame many obstacles in her life. She put herself through college and law school and then received a Masters of Law from Columbia Law School.  Her life experiences in the foster care system made her uniquely qualified for the Family Court bench in which led her to her desire to help defend children who cannot protect themselves.

Awards and acknowledgements were presented to youth in residential programs, foster care, preventative and out-patient services for children and families. Many staff awards were also presented for service.

In addition to all the awards, Hope For Youth kindly accepted a generous donation made by the Book Fairies. Book Fairies is a not-for-profit organization that collects reading materials for people in need throughout metropolitan, New York. The reading materials foster literacy and academic success provide a respite from personal struggles and nurture a love of reading across age groups. The youth thoroughly enjoyed looking through the variety of books that were available to take. Many left with armfuls of books to keep them busy for the summer months!!