4 The Courier sun • JUly 9, 2015 for breaking news visit www.couriersun.com Seven Queens students accepted to the US service academies BY ANTHONY GIUDICE [email protected] @A_GiudiceReport Seven recent high school graduates from Queens will be all they can be in their college years after being accepted into various U.S. military service academies with the assistance of Congresswoman Grace Meng. The academies consist of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland; U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado; U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point; and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut. Kate Gerodias from Middle Village graduated from Forest Hills High School and will be attending the Naval Academy; Zachary Kurre from Glendale graduated from Archbishop Molloy High School and will attend West Point this summer; Selah Cho of Fresh Meadows finished school at Marion Military Institute in Alabama and will attend West Point; Kevin Guo from Rego Park graduated from Hunter College High School and will be continuing his education at the Naval Academy; Julia Hsu from Flushing graduated from West Point Prep School and will go on to West Point this summer; John Makiling of Flushing graduated from Naval Academy Prep School and will continue on to the Naval Academy; and Daniel Zakrevski from Richmond Hill graduated from Bronx High School of Science and will be attending the Merchant Marine Academy. “I am honored to congratulate these seven exceptional students,” Meng said. “All are outstanding individuals who will be future military leaders of our country. I have no doubt that they’ll make Queens and the nation proud.” Students looking to attend the service academies are required to be nominated by their Congress member. The institutions then evaluate the nominations from across the nation and decide which nominees to accept. The students nominated by Meng compete against students from across the country and must meet the highly competitive educational, physical and extracurricular standards set by the institutions. Meng’s Academy Review Board, which is a panel of local community Congresswoman Meng congratulating Queens students attending the nation’s U.S. Service Academies. From left to right: Julia Hsu, Selah Cho, Zachary Kurre, Congresswoman Grace Meng, Kate Gerodias, John Makiling, Daniel Zakrevski and Kevin Guo. leaders, assists Meng in the nomination process for students looking to attend the academies. This year, a total of 33 students applied to be nominated by Meng. Of those 33 students, 20 were nominated by the Congresswoman. To congratulate the students for being accepted to the service academies, Meng hosted a reception Photo courtesy of Congresswoman Grace Meng’s office for them and their families at her office in Flushing. She also presented each student with a certificate of Congressional recognition. Meng plans to continue her “U.S. Service Academy Information Night” for Queens students who are interested in applying to the U.S. Service Academies. The day and location will be announced in the near future. TOUR OF RICHMOND HILL HIGHLIGHTS THE INDO-CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY’S NEEDS BY ANTHONY GIUDICE [email protected]/@A_GiudiceReport The Indo-Caribbean population and culture in Richmond Hill is booming, and as a result the residents are in need of programs and institutions that bring them together as a community. Richard David, co-founder of the Indo-Caribbean Alliance (ICA), led a 2-hour walking tour on June 25 of Richmond Hill’s important Indo-Caribbean cultural hubs, including Little Guyana Bake Shop and the Shri Lakshmi Narayan Mandir, informing the participants of the support system that local organizations, like the ICA, provides to their community. “The Indo-Caribbean community in Richmond Hill has exploded in the past 10 years, growing an estimated 23 percent from 2000 to 2010 and having the third highest foreign-born population in NYC,” said Joo Han, program and communications manager for the Asian American Federation (AAF). “However, the community has received little government funding due to its lack of visibility, despite its being the largest Indo-Caribbean community in NYC.” One stop on the tour was Shri Lakshmi Narayan Mandir, one of the oldest Hindu temples in the city. Not only does the Mandir provide residents with a place to worship, but organizers are looking to create senior and youth programs to be held in the Mandir, in order to educate the community on the importance of joining together and helping others. “There is no community center in the neighborhood,” said Varuna Sahabir, organizing secretary at the Shri Lakshmi Narayan Mandir. “Since there is no official place for the community to gather, it is a struggle to get people to come out to vote. The community needs to come together. That is why we are trying to reach out and help the people of the community.” The tour concluded at the ICA office, located at 131-12 Liberty Ave., to discuss some of the community’s needs and how ICA provides support for youth and residents. “We’re a community that can do a lot with a little support, but we have a lot of service needs,” David said. “Our youth are dropping out at unprecedented rates; we’re now faced with a generation of young people who have actually achieved less education than their parents. We need to address those needs.” The ICA has several programs dedicated to youth, including a middle school initiative, a college bound program and a mentoring program. “We do a leadership skill-building program, it’s a natural complement to some of our civic advocacy work because the students in our leadership program are also the ones registering people to vote, organizing debates, setting up different cleaning events for Liberty Avenue…it’s a really good way to get our programs to build greater cohesion,” David said. According to the AAF Census Information Center the demographic profile of Richmond Hill shows that 74 percent of Indians and 72 percent of Asians were immigrants. This high level of immigration in the Indo-Caribbean community in Richmond Hill has led the ICA to create a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA is a special, non-permanent immigration program that provides work permits and temporary relief from deportation to eligible residents. ICA offers help to interested residents to find free lawyers and see if they are eligible and may even be able to cover application fees. Ridgewood Times/Photo by Anthony Giudice Richard David (left) of the Indo-Caribbean Alliance and Jo-An Yoo (right) of the Asian American Federation speaking at the Queens Library at Lefferts on some of the needs of the Indo-Caribbean community in Richmond Hill.
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