Met Council Honors Dedicated Volunteer

Met Council recently recognized longtime volunteer Ami Bar-Tura for his ongoing dedication to the organization. Ami has worked closely with Project Metropair, a program making home visits to people in need of minor home repairs, for more than six years.

“Met Council is a fantastic organization. When you do volunteer work you get rewarded as much as those you serve because it’s really a great feeling to help,” said Ami. “I enjoyed my time very much and I’m happy to have helped.”

Through his work with Project Metropair, Ami was able to help thousands of seniors remain safe and independent in their homes. He was also the recipient of the Met Council 2006 Volunteer of the Year Award.

Ami will be leaving the organization this year to move closer to his family in Israel. “We don’t know what we’ll do without him,” said Val Beloshkurenko, director of Met Council Home Services. “Ami worked nine to five doing all kinds of things. Anything that was asked, he would do.”

Volunteers are an essential part of Met Council programs like Project Metropair (insert link). To learn how you can volunteer, contact….

Photo: (left to right) Ami and his Met Council handyman worker, Sergi.

Volunteer of the Month goes to....Kevin Carroccia!

As a way of saying thank you, Met Council presents Kevin Carroccia with our Volunteer of the Month Award for his dedication and enthusiasm in our Job Readiness volunteer programming. Kevin grew up in Plainville, Connecticut but soon realized New York was calling his name. Since that time, he has graced our fair city – and more particularly our Volunteer Department - with his enthusiasm and desire to help!

Kevin learned about Met Council through a friend who had volunteered with us. After hearing about the important work Met Council does in helping New Yorkers find lasting solutions to poverty, he made it his business to get involved.

“I always wanted to do something, and I always wanted to give back somehow,” Kevin remembers. “I believe that everyone has something they are passionate about and it is important to find that thing and bring it out in others.”

Kevin volunteers with Met Council’s Networking Workshop and Resume Review Workshop which are part of our Job Readiness Programs. The Networking Workshop teaches clients the skills to build a successful professional network. It also gives them the opportunity to practice their newly learned skills by networking with volunteers at the workshop.

As luck would have it, Kevin is an executive recruiter in the Electronic Health Records field which Met Council’s Career Services department specializes in for their training programs. It’s a match made in heaven!

He also volunteers with our Resume Review Workshop which has volunteers working one on one with clients on their resumes. “I get a rush out of it; you leave and think maybe you made a difference in at least one person’s life. Until you go and see and do it, you don’t realize the struggle that people go through.”

Kevin, thank you for the time, enthusiasm, and skill you bring to Met Council!

Senior Nutrition Workshop now at TWO locations!

Tuesday, May 3rd marked the kickoff for the Senior Nutrition Workshop for low-income seniors living in the Seagate community near Coney Island, Brooklyn.

In this community many seniors are fluent in Russian and much more comfortable using that language, which is why we were very lucky to come upon our Nutrition Volunteer, who speaks both English and Russian fluently.

Each senior at the workshop received an educational set of handouts in either English or Russian. The first workshop focused on the new food plate. Each lesson will focus on a different aspect of nutrition and why it's important for senior health. After yesterdays lesson I think we all learned a little more about what we should be eating to keep our bodies healthy at any age!