Enabling the potential of people with developmental disabilities, enriching our communities
New Horizons Holds 30th Annual Community Leadership Awards
We were joined on the 28th by Dutchess County Executive, Sue Serino, City of Poughkeepsie Mayor Yvonne Flowers and Lydia Biskup representing Senator Rob Rolison. Proclamations were issued to each honoree by Sue Serino, NYS Senator Rolison, NYS Senator Michelle Hinchey and NYS Assemblymember Jonathan Jacobson.
Helping to make the Community Leadership Awards possible are our sponsors who deserve our thanks. They include, as our Diamond Sponsor Hudson Regional LTC Pharmacy, Emerald Sponsor, the Alera Group, Ruby Sponsor Mauri Architects PC, Sapphire Sponsor Hickey-Finn & Company, Ambassador Circle Sponsors, KeyBank and Barclay Damon LLP and Emissary Circle Sponsor, Regis Obijiski. NHR would also like to recognize the contributions of NHR Board Member, Brian Doyle, Steve Sansola and NHR employees Sandi Swan and Dottie Denunzio who have served on the planning committee for this event.
For more than a half century, NHR has lived a mission with a focus on community – ensuring that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are truly seen and understood to be the valuable members of our community that they are. Our work could not be possible without the support of our community – and as an organization – we are truly grateful for that support – which is especially valued – at moments when we face challenges - as we have this year. A community is at its core, a group of people that care about each other and feel they belong together. Thanks to all who attended the 30th Annual Community Leadership Awards – honoring four exemplary leaders – and showing their support for NHR.
Pegeen Wall Nomination
Pegeen Wall served as the Director of New Horizons Foundation for 14 years prior to her retirement. In this role, she led fundraising efforts, coordinated volunteers, organized events, and engaged community leaders in support of New Horizons’ mission. She oversaw all public relations and fundraising activities, including special events and grant solicitation.
Even before her formal employment with NHR, Pegeen actively contributed her expertise and personal experiences, which ultimately played a vital role in helping the organization raise funds to support its mission: “Enabling the potential of people with developmental disabilities, enriching our communities.”
Pegeen’s leadership was deeply rooted in her personal experience. As a mother of six children, two of whom—Lynn and Nancy (both deceased)—had developmental disabilities, she brought a profound sense of empathy and dedication to her work. Her family, including her husband Tom, actively supported New Horizons through volunteer efforts, particularly during Pegeen’s tenure as director.
Before joining New Horizons, Pegeen directed swimming programs at the Poughkeepsie YMCA, where she pioneered inclusive swim instruction and water activities for individuals with disabilities. Her work there led to connections with New Horizons board members and staff, as well as with Abilities First (formerly ReHab Programs), where her daughters received services. Pegeen and her family were long-time volunteers with the agency.
Among her many contributions, Pegeen organized the “Soaper Bowl,” a baseball fundraiser featuring soap opera stars and local radio personalities. She also launched the NHR Fashion Show, a beloved community event that celebrated individuals with disabilities as models along with local community individuals. The fashion show featured contributions from local boutiques, hairdressers, and fashion students from Marist College, who were taught at the time by Lydia Biskup."
Pegeen’s commitment to community service is extensive and impactful. She played a key role in organizing the NHR 50th Anniversary Gala, leveraging her deep knowledge and long-standing involvement with the organization.
Her civic and volunteer roles include:
• Member of the Marist College Golf Committee
• Marist Red Fox Club Member
• Volunteer for Marist Athletics
• Former Treasurer, Professional Communicators of the Hudson Valley
• Former Member, Dutchess County YMCA’s Adult Program and Kids Committees
• Former Member, Spackenkill School District Committee on Special Education
• Volunteer for Special Olympics
• “Because she understood very personally the meaning of human dignity as well as the vagaries involved in community membership, she is a quintessential realist informed by a deep Catholic faith witnessed in the unfolding of human potential. She practices the foundational principles of New Horizons: belonging, learning, self-determination, productivity, and respect. She raised a big family and remains a mother-figure in the family of community where everyone counts and distinction of the individual only adds to the community’s value. Pegeen brings out the dignity in each of us because she is so irrepressibly motherly: a role which engenders order out of love and inclusivity out of humor and kindness.”
Carmen McGill Nomination
Carmen McGill, 86, has had a lifelong concern about racial justice; and a lifelong belief that education is the best way to address racism.
Starting as a child, Carmen’s parents stressed education, especially around Black history and Black accomplishment. Carmen continued this mission using her keen sense of justice and commanding social presence in her decades-long career as an educator at Dutchess Community College and as a local community activist.
In recent years, Ms. McGill’s accomplishments centered on her cofounding “Celebrating the African Spirit” (CAS) with Kae Hite, a white woman who is a professor of political science at Vassar College. As the name indicates, CAS sponsors programs that publicly highlight the resilience of people of African descent in their home countries, as well as in America.
This summer CAS, with Carmen and Kae deciding every detail together, held its 5th annual imaginative reenactment of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglas’ speech to thousands of people in Poughkeepsie’s College Hill Park on August 2, 1858. They also continued their summer youth program centered on African American history, which collaborates with many local agencies including Vassar College and the Center for Creative Education in Kingston. The program featured a day long bus trip to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, in Harlem – with Carmen guiding every step along the way.
CAS’s most successful public education accomplishment is spearheading – along with Poughkeepsie Mayor Yvonne Flowers - the installation of a commemorative sculpture marking the history of slavery in Dutchess County. This enduring, truth-telling sculpture, designed by local CAS youth, was dedicated this Juneteenth, in Waryas Park on the Poughkeepsie riverfront. It serves as a crucial reminder of the widespread slavery in 18th and 19th century Duchess County, as well as its subsequent effects today.
Prominent Hudson Valley social justice activist Poet Gold, herself a NHR Community Leadership awardee, calls Carmen McGill “a steadfast personal and community inspiration.”
For more information on Carmen and CAS, you might listen to some or all of the half-hour podcast interview she did for iHeart Media on June 13 with the title “Riverfront Teaching.” The direct link to the podcast is: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/481-peter-and-the-poet-gold-30383287/
Mathew Swerdloff and Elise Gold Nomination
I am nominating Mathew Swerdloff and Elise Gold, specifically for their work as co-founders of the Maya Gold Foundation. While they have each been active for many years in various community efforts, including volunteering, serving on boards, and working for the betterment of their community, it is their work as co-founders and board members that moves and inspires me to ask that they be recognized with Community Leadership Awards.
On October 2, 2015, Maya Gold, a New Paltz High School sophomore, died by suicide. Maya was a bright and empathetic young woman whose loss was felt throughout the region. Her parents, Mathew and Elise, still deep in their grief, were so moved to help other teens struggling with mental health challenges, that by mid November of the same year they had incorporated the Maya Gold Foundation and received 501(c)(3) status from the IRS. Their first Board meeting was held in February of 2016, and they have been active in the Hudson Valley (and Nepal) since then.
The mission of the Maya Gold Foundation is to “empower youth to access their inner wisdom and realize their dreams”, and Mathew and Elise ensure that the organization stays true to that mission. The Foundation has a board of 11 adults, and a “Youth Action Team” of sixteen Hudson Valley teenagers. These teens attend Board meetings and serve on committees, and have a say in how the organization operates. Between 2018 and 2022, Mathew and Elise have taken over fifty teens and adults to Nepal on service learning trips. The Foundation has hosted numerous community programs, addressing topics such as empathy, emotional intelligence, suicide, anxiety, mental health and mental self care. They have brought in speakers, musicians, actors, and movies to the community to explore these and other topics. These events have all been free to the community, and driven by the need of the teens on the Youth Action Team and in the community.
Perhaps most significant is their work regarding teen mental health. In 2020, the Maya Gold Foundation was selected as the only Hudson Valley site to offer a specific evidence-based teen training, “Teen Mental Health First Aid”. This six hour training gives teens the tools they need to support a friend facing a mental health challenge or crisis. Mathew and Elise were certified to train and have brought this training to schools and communities in Dutchess, Ulster, Orange, and Sullivan counties. They have trained hundreds of teens, and received positive feedback from dozens of them. Recently they presented the statistical analysis of the efficacy of the training at a national conference. One outcome of their presentation was that they were awarded funding by the Mental Health Association of NYS to bring this specific training to teens in the region. This is indicative of the respect for and trust in the organization that so many hold. That respect and trust was built and nurtured by the care and compassion of Mathew and Elise.
