Group Celebrates Teaneck Graduates

by Megan Merrigan

The National Coalition of 100 Black Women’s Bergen/Passaic chapter celebrated four recent Teaneck High School graduates at a tea party Sunday.

“It’s a way for us to thank (the graduates) and acknowledge their accomplishments,” chapter President Deborah Jackson said of the event.

The four graduates were participants of the organization’s Role Model program, an initiative enacted by the chapter in 1990.

The Role Model program strives to provide local young women with hands-on mentoring, which promotes leadership development and encourages its participants to be agents of change in their communities, according to the Jeannette Curtis-Rideau, the program’s chair.

“Because of this program there is so much more to come,” Sandra Rice, the afternoon’s keynote speaker, said.  “It’s your turn, as the role models, to take what you’ve learned and maximize it to the fullest.”

The Role Model program is a reflection of NCBW’s founding principals.

The organization, which was founded in Manhattan in 1970 as a platform to promote women’s empowerment, now has 57 chapters nationwide and operates as a recognized non-profit, according to Rideau.

“I’m very proud of our girls,” Rideau said of the program’s participants who were all members of the National Honors Society, scholarship recipients and will be heading to college in the fall.

Deshauna Joseph, Khaliyah Leggete, Whitney Apoh and Aquella Hutton were the young Teaneck women celebrated at the event.

“I love the network we get to build.  I can go to anyone for anything, and there is someone a part of it who is associated with something that I need,” Apoh said.

The Role Model program meets once a month throughout the academic year.  At meetings, participants learn lessons in higher education, SAT preparation, applying for scholarships, health, cultural awareness and money management.

The group also met outside of its monthly meeting to tour Barnard College in Manhattan earlier this year.

In addition to the time and lessons the members of the NCBW lend to those taking part in the Role Model program, participants will now have the opportunity to receive a monetary gift by way of the Mary Anne Miller Scholarship, named in honor of the chapter’s founder.

As they leave Teaneck High School behind, Hutton will be joining Apoh at Bergen Community College, Joseph is heading to Kean University and Leggete is on her way to Georgetown University.