SUN-Queens, Senior Umbrella Network of Queens held their February Meeting at Cliffside Rehabilitation and Residential Health Care Center.  The meeting opened with networking for Senior Resources followed by opening remarks from, New York City Council Member Vickie Paladino.  Council Member Paladino reminisces about when her family moved to Queens from the Bronx and purchased their family home for just $3000 in 1947.  At that time there was nothing but farmland here said Paladino.

A lot has changed in our City in the last 4-8 years.  She goes on to explain the needs of our community have grown substantially.  The Council Woman takes pride in being a fighter, she fights for what is right and for common sense.  Paladino serves on the Veteran’s Committee and is very passionate about helping our Veteran’s.  In her office she offers a Veteran’s Resource Center, available every other Wednesday, Tanya Thomas from the VA comes in.     Her office is the only office in all the City Council Offices that has ever had a Veteran’s Resource Center.  She says Veterans come all the way from Staten Island to get Veterans Services available at her office in Queens.  Paladino cringes at the 12 millions dollars allocated for Veterans, from our City budget of 101.1 billion dollars.  It’s just not enough said Paladino. She also serves on the mental health committee. The Council Member is also very involved with connecting seniors with young people.  After Covid depression is huge for seniors and younger people.  Seniors have become very cut off.  She tries to connect seniors with the right resources.

Additionally we heard from Monica Weidman, Marketing Director of CFW Group and on the board of  SUN Queens and here today in  Cliffside one of the 3 facilities owned by CFW, she Woodcrest next door and Forest View in Forest Hills is also part of CFW.

Our next speaker was Terri Prezio with Commonpoint Queens. After 32 years of working in NYC for some very prestigious firms Terri decided it was time for something different.  She had enough of the hustle, bustle and bureaucracy.  After a year off and volunteered at the Greenwich House.  She laughed at herself this morning because she was up at 5 A.M. to get ready for our meeting when she realized Cliffside is just 2 minutes from her house.  She giggled as she reminisced about her morning.  She decided she wanted to worked for a community service.  NYC hired her to run a program called Ladders For Leaders.  The program is designed to place college students in summer intern positions.  Not a typical internship.  These are high achieving students with a NYC home base.  Once accepted into the programs these students get 30 hours of training on how to write a resume, interview and what is appropriate work behavior.  Last year 3200 students applied and 1100 were accepted and they placed over 900 of those students.  The types of positions these students are looking for are accounting, finance, It grant writing medical engineering,  political offices and the like. The meeting was full of senior resources and networking

Caryn Isaacs is our past Co-Chair of SUN Queens, and is currently an Advisor to The Board

SUN Queens meetings are currently held in person and broadcast through Zoom with some members attending online. A large portion of our members are now meeting in person.

Here are a few more photos. Perhaps well see you at the next meeting of SUN Queens, Senior Umbrella Network of Queens, when we get together to build a network for Senior Resources in Queens.

SUN Queens Networking

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