by Yelena Mandenberg
Every year, the Kingsborough Community College Foundation has a dinner in order to raise money for scholarships for deserving students. This year’s 3rd Annual Seaside Splash, took place inside the MAC on June 16. While this event is usually held outdoors on the beach, this year the party was moved inside because of rain. Despite the weather conditions, this year’s Seaside Splash was a huge success for the students, faculty, and other guests.
Last year they were able to raise over $100,000 for students. This year they surpassed that record, raising $150,000 for student scholarships.
The festivities began around 6:30, with cocktails in the specially set up first floor of the Marine and Academic building. Cocktails were followed by a lobster dinner in the MAC rotunda, with a band (Eric Nicolas and One Love) playing oldies jazz to which even President Regina Peruggi could not resist dancing to.
The first student speaker (introduced by President Peruggi) was Joy Marchionni, who is the Honors Club president, a Student Ambassador to the Global Ethics Conference in Salzburg, Austria. She is graduating this year with a degree in Liberal Arts and heading off to Smith College in the fall on scholarship. Marchionni recalls her experiences in the Honors Club, and explains to the guests that, “honor students are not recruited here, they are created.”
The second student speaker was Catarino Rodriguez, an Iraqi veteran. He told the story of how he wound up enrolling at Kingsborough, almost accidentally. His friend was a student and had to come to the campus to run errands, and Rodriguez came with him. Rodriguez’s friend suggested that Rodriguez take the same classes as him, and so he did. Catarino Rodriguez is now a Liberal Arts major with a 3.9 GPA and studies as many different subjects he can. Rodriguez says he “took advantage of everything Kingsborough offered,” and is a better person for it.
This year’s National Grid Award scholarship was awarded to Danyal Qureshi. He is 18 years old, and has a 3.69 GPA. Although he believes academics are important, his main focus is on volunteer work. He spends his time coaching children’s teams through the Public School Athletic League and the Big Apple Games. He also serves as a peer advisor, a member of the KCC Honor Society and a member of Phi Theta Kappa.
Some of the other recipients were: Justin Boshell, Rudolph Chase, Diana Derks, Shannon Gellizeau, William Guadarrama, Dan Henderson, Aleksej Legkovod, Dinora McDermott and Grace Simmons.
National Grid and Forest City Ratner Companies both gave very large donations to this fund. There was a very long list of many other companies, colleges, and people who also donated to the scholarship fund. Even Dr. Peruggi herself donated $2,500.
The night ended around 10:30 P.M. The music, food and company was amazing judging by the smiles on the attendees faces. The event was a huge success. Gift bags were given out containing t-shirts, sunblock, sunglasses, gift certificates as well as other things. KCC student volunteers from the Department of Tourism and Hospitality provided the food and some of the catering service.
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