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Corporate and Community Leaders Help Plan Bright Futures for at-Risk Teens
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| Career Awareness Club (CAC) member Samantha Roche (left) is being interviewed by "talk show hosts" and CAC corporate volunteers, Paul Barber of Morgan Stanley (center) and Russatta Buford of American Express (right), during a recent group activity where Samantha discusses her future career as a forensic psychologist in the year 2026. |
The volunteer efforts of corporate and community leaders contributed greatly to this year's success of the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service's Career Awareness Club (CAC). These volunteers meet weekly with at-risk teens to discuss career-related issues, explore career opportunities, and to visit corporations and colleges to help the teen members gain a clearer vision of how to plan for their futures.
Paul Barber, a Morgan Stanley analyst and CAC volunteer, brought to the club a wealth of volunteer experience from his high school and college years as a youth mentor, football coach, summer camp counselor and Sunday school teacher for at-risk children and teens in Virginia.
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| Kimberly Sandwall (left), CAC co-facilitator of the club's group activities and Mary Tanneberger (right), Director of the Brooklyn Bureau's Bedford-Stuyvesant Family Center present Russatta Buford with a Certificate of Appreciation for her dedication and work with the CAC. |
Russatta Buford, an American Express advocate of diversity-based business, also brought a wealth of experience working with disadvantaged youth. Her volunteer work includes being a surrogate parent and community activist in New Orleans. In fact, her work with at-risk children began when she was a child. Russatta's mother would always "adopt" a family at Christmas and provide presents for the entire family. Russatta would participate every year, buying and wrapping presents and giving them to the family in person.
In addition to the weekly meetings, Russatta organized a day trip to tour the American Express headquarters and recruited several colleagues to give career presentations at the family center.
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| Kimberly Sandwall and Mary Tanneberger present CAC volunteer, Linda Knight (center), Community Service Committee Chairperson at the Central Brooklyn Lions Club, with a certificate for her dedication and work with the CAC. |
Linda Knight, Community Service Committee Chairperson at the Central Brooklyn Lions Club, provided the teens with an understanding of the workday business world, the journey of self discovery and the power of decisions and self-direction. Linda is also an active member of the Fenimore Street Methodist Church.
The Career Awareness Club, hosted at our Bedford-Stuyvesant Family Center in Brooklyn, offers at-risk teens who dream big the opportunity to develop feasible professional goals with the help of social workers and volunteer professionals who engage the teens in discussions about careers, education, motivation and success. An onsite computer lab helps turn the talks into action, as the team researches possible future careers online. Volunteers have included a demolition construction worker, a professional dancer, several lawyers, a musician and a web designer. The Career Awareness Club was profiled in Time Out New York magazine for volunteer opportunities.
During the past year, the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service served more than 12,000 persons; enlisted more than 300 volunteers; provided safe and educational afterschool programs to more than 1,000 children from low-income families; placed more than 800 people with disabilities into paying jobs; kept more than 500 at-risk families intact and functioning; and prevented the unnecessary foster care placement of nearly 1,200 children.
To join our volunteer team, contact Frank Sala, Volunteer Services Director at 718-310-5621 or fsala@bbcs.org.
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