Thursday, December 13, 2007

HELP A GREENBURGH RESIDENT FROM FAIRVIEW ATTEND INTERNATIONAL SCHOLAR LAUREATE PROGRAM

Jody-Ann Knight, a Greenburgh resident who wants to be an Oral-Surgeon needs your financial help. She was recently nominated to represent her university and community at the Australia Interntional Scholar Laureate Program. She needs to raise funds to attend. Please contribute to her efforts and help this young, dedicated Greenburgh resident achieve her goals and become a future leader in the medical profession.
PAUL FEINER

Dear Mr. Feiner:

My name is Jody-Ann Knight and I am an African–American in my sophomore year at Stony Brook University in Long Island. Recently, I have been nominated to represent my university and community at the Australia International Scholar Laureate Program.

The Australia Medical Program brings exceptional college and university students from around the country to an experiential program. I have taken the liberty to enclose a sample of our itinerary for your review. As you can see, this will be a powerful experience, enabling me to interact with many prominent men and women whom most of us only read about in the news.

Attending the program will enable me to develop my leadership skills and reach my career goals of becoming an Oral-Surgeon. I am majoring in Biology/Pre-dentistry and plan to graduate in 2010. I maintain a 3.8 GPA and in fact am on the National Deans List. I am very adamant in giving back to my community which is why not only am I an active participant to the Residential Safety Program (RSP) at my university but I am also a volunteer at the Westchester Medical Center.

Now imagine if you had been given this opportunity for a life changing experience when you were in
college and were unable to participate for lack of funds. That is why I am writing you today.

My participation in the Australia Medical Program depends on whether I am able to raise $5000 in sponsorships. The program tuition is $5120 and in addition are my travel expenses of $1000. Through my family and personal savings I have already raised $1200.

I am hoping that you will be able to assist me with part of these costs. I have also contacted T-Mobile, JP Morgan Chase, Oprah Winfrey, K-mart and Sears Holding Inc with similar fund-raising requests. My tuition payments must be met no later than January 15, 2007.

Your support for my sponsorship request would be greatly appreciated. I have enclosed background materials on the ISLP program to answer your questions and help you make your decision. Please contact me at (914)434-7112 or ISLP at (800)778-0164 for any further information.

Sincerely

Jody-Ann Knight

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good morning!

Good Morning!
Good Morning!







Dear Paul,

I am a white woman currently living in Greenburgh. I have two children I have, upuntil this point, successfully raised here. I have recently be nominated for “Mother of the Year” and I fear that I may have to turn down this possible distinction as I living here will soon to lead to a financial crisis whereby I will no longer be able to pay my taxes. The blunder of remaining in Greenburgh disqualifies me from this nomination. I should have moved years ago. My fault.

I have given back to my community over the 15 years I’ve lived here as I support all other families who can’t/won’t pay for town services. I also support the education of large percentage of students attending Greenburgh Central, who don’t live here or pay no school tax.

Can you imagine having invested this much time & money into a community knowing that I cannot fulfill my children’s dreams? I will not be able to afford college tuitions for my children if I stay living here. I have contacted a Real estate broker who will list my home in the Spring.

My children are honor students, members of the National Junior Honor Society. Both would like to peruse education with the hopes of becoming Doctors. There is no financial assistance offered to us as we are middle class. This means I pay for everything and if I can’t pay, we don’t get.

I’m reaching out to you for financial support. Could you help me find a way to stay while I help my children achieve their goals? I estimate that I would need a reduction of taxes by 50%.

Sincerely,

Broke in Greenburgh

Anonymous said...

Mr Feiner -
This is an admirable young woman!
YOU personally have the funds sitting in your Feiner for Congress bank account - as you have no intention of running for Congress again why don't you just write the check?

Anonymous said...

This is for the birds.
There are many students in the same boat since when do we have to help in paying for higher education.
I think we did enough through our taxes for education.
There are so many grants to be had but the problem is that the receiver has to pay back.
Paul we need help ourselves.
My parents worked day and night to give me an education.
Now I can thank them for making me a better person and a proferssional person to boot.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Feiner:

We have serious problems in Greenburgh. We have a 23% tax increase, a contentious Town Board, and a town departments that seem to be overstaffed and inefficient.

That is what you should be concentrating on, not being a fundraiser for one student. Sure she has a touching story, but so do hundreds of others. And it is not your business. Your business is the town government.

By doing things like this you annoy residents. You seem to be playing favorites. I know that you mean well, but you don't seem like a serious person who knows what his job is.

Comcentrate on your job and dealing with the town's problems. Let the young lady be her own fundraiser. She seems able enough. We need you to spend all of your time on matters that concern all of us.

Anonymous said...

"I know that you mean well, but you don't seem like a serious person who knows what his job is."

Agreed. We are so desperately in need of focused town management.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for helping a young Greenburgh resident. You are a friend to all! That's why we voted for you.

Anonymous said...

Funny, I thought we were supposed to be voting for a Town Supervisor - you know, someone who actually governs and makes hard decisions.

Anonymous said...

What's wrong with helping a young woman achieve her goals?
Don't be a scrooge!

Anonymous said...

Nothing wrong with it dearest 12:28.
It's inappropriate on this blog IMO. Posting her phone #'s here is completely inappropriate as well.

In typical, Paul, goofball style.

Anonymous said...

It's great to have a town that treats residents like family. How many other municipal officials are willing to help exceptional students they don't know?

Anonymous said...

HOW ABOUT HELPING THE TAXPAYERS.

Anonymous said...

GET A JOB !!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Is this money going to Nigera or is paul finer caught up in a scam.

Anonymous said...

Call your new superintendent he has plenty of money now. $275,000.

Anonymous said...

Why isn't Stony brook paying for her trip if she is representing them?

Anonymous said...

This request may be genuine, but the organization behind it is not what you might think. The information below can be found at: http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=266469

Paul, you need to check these out before you post this stuff.

--------------------------------------------------

I got a fancy letter today. From the International Scholar Laureate Program Delegation on Technology in China. They say I was nominated to participate because of my exemplary leadership, exceptional academic performance, and because I am a member of The National Dean's List. Blah, blah, blah..... I've heard worse.

I quote from their website :


QUOTE
Participants travel to Beijing, Shenzen and Shanghai, where they will have an opportunity to see first-hand why U.S. and European technology companies are rapidly shifting their research and development functions to China. Students get an up-close look at the technological, financial and competitive forces that fuel the high-speed race for power in the field of technology. Participants also examine the ways in which China's education system prepares future technology leaders, and the challenges of government requirements and regulations.

-------------------------------------------------

The catch is that I have to pay over $5000 dollars for the 16-day program plus personal expenses.
I have to figure out if this is for real or some kind of scam. I might try to do it if it is real.

Anybody heard of this, or maybe know someone or are themselves someone who participated? It sounds like a good opportunity, but could be a scam.

What do you guys think?

Hey, I used to work for the "parent group" and it is FOR PROFIT educational company called Envision (www.envisionemi.com). They manage 2 non-profits www.cylc.org and www.nylf.org, but in truth, the people who own Envision, also started NYLF & CYLC.

They also run these programs as well:
http://www.physicianambassadors.org/about.cfm
http://www.nationalyoungscholars.org/ (This program was created by the fictious National Center for Early Academic Excellence, which really is Envision as well.

Overall, the company provides tours that focus on leadership and careers, but they are a direct mail powerhouse. Everything is about statistics and they know exactly how many people to mail to fill each of their program.


Check out the Better Business Bureau's file to see all the names this group runs under. http://www.dc.bbb.org/codbrep.html?ID=7001305&cons=y