Garden News - Queens Botanical Garden

GREEN TEENSWondering who those smiling young peoplewearing bright green T-shirts were at QBG thissummer? Why, this year’s group of summerinterns, a.k.a. the Green Teens! Twenty local highschool and college students who had in commona passion for the environment, worked with staffmembers to keep the Garden beautiful andrunning throughout the hottest days of summer.The interns were involved in all aspects of theGarden, from weeding in the Wedding Garden tocreating press kits. Additional duties includedhelping young participants in HSBC Children'sGarden and assisting our development and capitalprojects staffs. Our Green Teens participated inweekly enrichment activities such as trips,workshops, and lectures. Guest lecturers includedrepresentatives from Whole Foods Market andAmerican Express, who spoke about the benefitsof organic foods and financial responsibility.(1st row, l. to r.) Natalie Ramroop, PratimaBhattacharyya, Christina Cephus, Jessica Li, KhudejaWardak, Shirley Cheng, Zhen Huang, Kevin Fuchs(2nd row, l. to r.) Samuel Budin, Shante Dickson, JeffreyMaiorino, Issa Duncan, Ross Stackhouse, SubrinaMoorley, Mariyam Salley, Elissa MopperMissing: Ariana Aronis, Jenny Choi, and Danny MartinezNow in its second year, our eight-weeksummer program was made possible withsupport from the Altman Foundation, theWalter Kaner Children's Foundation, and theNYC Department of Youth and CommunityDevelopment's Summer Youth EmploymentProgram. This was also the first summer weemployed interns from the Lexington Schoolfor the Deaf, with assistance from the Departmentof Education's Referral and Placement Center.Thank you and congratulations to our GreenTeens for a job well done!Sheila Raj, Internship CoordinatorSTAFF NEWSQBG welcomes back Karen Simonson asdirector of finance and administration.Karen resumes her old role after leavingthe Garden to raise daughter Rebecca andworking part-time for the Linden Trustfor Conservation.Scott Stefan, new director of marketing, Scott, Pedro, Nicole, and Tammyhas been a graphic designer, art director,and marketing executive with a long career in advertising. Three campaignsthat he created are still on the air: OppenheimerFunds, Lean Cuisine, andDr. Scholl's (the Gellin' campaign).Nicole De Feo joined the staff at the end of June as capital projectsassistant. Nicole recently returned from work in Kenya for the Foundationfor Sustainable Development. She previously worked for Form Architecture +Interiors in Manhattan and interned in QBG’s horticulture department.New development and marketing assistant Tammy Ho completed hergraduate coursework in government and politics in January 2007 at St. John'sUniversity. While pursuing her master’s, she worked as the SustainableDevelopment & Population Programme intern at Parliamentarians for GlobalAction in Manhattan.Sophia Warsh joined QBG as an assistant gardener in April. Sophia hasprevious experience in private landscaping and gardening in our regionand earned her bachelor’s degree at Bennington College in Vermont.Elizabeth Mooney and Gabriel Forestieri have also joined the horticulturestaff as plant records interns.Putting QBG’s green housekeeping practices into effect is new part-timecustodian Pedro Vasquez. He has been specially trained to implement aprotocol developed by operations and project manager Peter Sansone forcleaning the Garden’s new Visitor & Administration Center.Goodbye and Thank You Capital projects coordinator Max Joel,whocontributed several years of hard work and creativity to QBG’s capitalprojects and exhibits, has moved on to pursue his Master of EnvironmentalManagement at Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.After five years as an attendant guard, Freddy Fernandez leaves to completehis studies in automotive technology at Lincoln Technical Institute. Freddywill also be interning at an auto dealership this fall.“I grew up in Queens and had been to thisGarden many times as a child. It’s nice to bepart of the new QBG. It’s an interestingproject since it’s not strictly architecturalbut also incorporates green spaces.”Jeremy Lockard, Senior Design Project Manager,NYC Department of Design & Construction