Photo courtesy of Life’s WORC
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | MARCH 5-MARCH 11, 2021 9
BY CONNOR WALTER
Life’s WORC, the nonprofit
that helps individuals with
intellectual and developmental
disabilities and autism,
has named Shannon Preston
as its new senior director of
development.
Preston previously served
as director of advancement
with the Tilles Center for the
Performing Arts and brings 13
years of senior development experience
to her new role at Life’s
WORC.
Preston believes that her
experience in fundraising, recruiting
and increasing donations
will be vital to her new
position as senior director of development.
In this role, Preston
will oversee the organization’s
development, public relations,
event management and community
outreach activities.
“In my most recent role at the
Tilles Center for the Performing
Arts at Long Island University
in Brookville, I am especially
proud of having increased its total
contributions by 67 percent
over a three-year period,” Preston
said. “Other achievements
at Tilles include my reviving
event fundraising for its annual
gala and golf tournament by
recruiting top-level honorees,
committees and participants,
as well as increasing annual
donations from corporate and
private foundations and state
funding exponentially.”
Preston has also begun securing
funds for individuals
with disabilities as it pertains to
Life’s WORC.
“Relating to Life’s WORC, I
also secured funding for Tilles
Center’s Sensory Friendly Program
designed specifically for
individuals with disabilities,”
Preston said. “At the Metropolitan
Opera, I lead a staff responsible
for raising an average of
$13 million in unrestricted giving
annually, played a major
role in increasing annual event
revenues by over 100 percent in
a 10-year period, and helped to
create, launch and expand the
Met’s International Council, a
group of donors and board members
from all over the world.”
Life’s WORC was founded in
the 1970’s by Victoria Schneps
with the help of Geraldo Rivera.
Preston explained the importance
of the organization’s history
and expansion through
Queens to the work it is doing
today.
“Life’s WORC was founded
in the early 1970s following an
investigative report by Geraldo
Rivera who, as a young reporter
in 1972, exposed the deplorable
conditions that existed within
the Willowbrook State School,
then the largest institution in
the nation serving children
with developmental disabilities.
Rivera first learned about these
conditions from Life’s WORC’s
founder Vicki Schneps,” Preston
said. “Her daughter, Lara,
diagnosed at an early age with
severe brain damage, was a
resident at Willowbrook. When
cuts in state funding caused the
institution to fall into extensive
disrepair, Schneps, along with
other concerned individuals,
picketed to fight for the rights of
Willowbrook’s more than 5,000
residents.”
After Willowbrook’s closing,
as Preston explains, Life’s
WORC took on a significant role
in the community by assisting
individuals with developmental
disabilities.
“When Rivera’s scathing
investigative report uncovered
the atrocities inside the institution,
national outcry ultimately
forced its closing. It was in the
early ‘70s that Schneps would
start Life’s WORC and open
its first home in Little Neck,
Queens. Its first residents
were former Willowbrook residents,”
Preston said. “Today,
Life’s WORC provides beautiful
homes located across the
region, from Manhattan and
Queens to Nassau and Suffolk,
for individuals with disabilities,
as well as Community Services,
Financial and Trust Services,
and its Family Center for
Autism.”
The mission of Life’s WORC
is to provide supportive services,
programs and resources
which help individuals with
intellectual and developmental
disabilities and autism lead productive,
fulfilling lives. During
the COVID-19 pandemic, it was
important to Life’s WORC that
the organization kept their facilities
clean and their individuals
healthy.
Life’s WORC announces new
senior director of development
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