2010 BERKOWITZ SCHOLARS

    From left to right, Ghazal Erfani and Alyssa Reimer are this year's Berkowitz Memorial Scholarship winners.  Each of these young women will receive a five thousand dollar ($5,000) scholarship.

    The award is named for two people who devoted most of their adult lives to education and service to children and their families.  Myriam Berkowitz was for many years an elementary teacher in the Syosset schools, while her husband Leonard worked for forty-five years as a psychologist in Plainview-Old Bethpage. The Berkowitzs left a substantial portion of their estate to provide scholarships to high school seniors in the districts in which they spent their work lives.  Ever good unionists, they provided that their scholarship fund be administered by the leaders of the Syosset and Plainview teacher unions.

    Kennedy High School seniors are nominated by their guidance counselors on the basis of outstanding academic achievement and character.  They are then interviewed by the trustees of the scholarship fund and the winner chosen by consensus.

    Alyssa and Ghazal are the latest in a line of outstanding young scholars to receive this award.  Both are headed off to outstanding colleges, Ghazal to Cooper Union and Alyssa to Harvard.  We know they will do us proud.

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