STANDING Brooklyn’s Biggest Booster
Stalwart retires after decades of work
BAY RIDGE
They gave him a proper send off!
Three cheers to Guild of Exceptional
Children Executive Director
and Chief Executive Offi cer Paul
Cassone, who announced his retirement
on Jan. 10 after more than four
decades of tireless work and advocacy
for children and adults with special
needs.
Hundreds of offi cers, board members,
staff, individuals, and families of
the Bay Ridge charity joined in thanking
and congratulating Cassone for
his commitment to helping children
and adults living with developmental
and intellectual disabilities, and celebrated
his farewell
at a surprise retirement
party at the
Bay Ridge Manor
on 76th Street, between
Fourth and
Fifth avenues.
The long-time
local who now lives
in Windsor Terrace
gave decades of his
professional life to closing down institutions
and creating better group
homes for thousands of people in need,
according to a statement by the Guild.
“Devoting a lifetime to those who
are less fortunate, he was part of the
Civil Rights Movement that closed institutions
and opened group homes
and began community inclusion creating
better lives and brighter futures
for people with developmental disabilities,”
the statement read.
The do-gooder organization has
been a staple in Bay Ridge since 1958
and provides a range of educational,
clinical, and support services to more
than 700 children and adults throughout
the borough, according to the company.
Cassone’s work for the Guild goes
back as far as his high school days
at Xavier High School, and he continued
his work there during college
as a direct care worker and project
leader.
From there he moved on to
ACRMD, which later changed its
name to Lifespire, and rose through
the ranks to become chief operating offi
cer in 2003, which made him responsible
for 4,000 individuals with developmental
disabilities at 30 sites across
the fi ve boroughs.
He returned to the Guild as executive
director in 2005, and he has led
the expansion by opening programs
in Dyker Heights and Marine Park,
as well as growing the residential and
adult day services.
In the next chapter, he plans to
spend more time with his loving wife
Geraldine and his three adult children
Matthew, Christopher, and
Annie Rose — even though he’ll
be missed at the Guild, the release
read.
“We wish him well as he enters a
new chapter in his life’s journey. We
will all truly miss him,” it read.
— Kevin Duggan
FORT GREENE
Save the date
Come one, come all to celebrate 175
years of The Brooklyn Hospital Center
at an anniversary bash!
COURIER L 52 IFE, JAN. 25–31, 2019 M B G
The medical center is also honoring
Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo, poet
Walt Whitman, and the Fort Greene
Park Conservancy, all of which have
been part of its history.
Cumbo will serve as the event’s
keynote speaker, and B.A. Van Sise,
Whitman’s six-times great nephew,
will accept the award on behalf of the
Bard of Brooklyn.
Brooklyn Hospital Center cafeteria
(121 DeKalb Ave. at Ashland Place in
Fort Greene) Jan. 31, 10 am. RSVP to
Jessica Bruzzese at jbruzzese@tbh.org
or (718) 250–6544.
DOWNTOWN
Three cheers for the new Helen
Keller Services center Downtown,
whose leaders on Jan. 15 celebrated
its grand opening with a ribbon-cutting
ceremony.
The new state-of-the-art headquarters
for Helen Keller Services
— which last year celebrated its
125th anniversary of enabling
individuals who are blind, visually
impaired, or have combined
hearing and vision loss, to thrive
in their communities — at 180
Livingston St. boasts a massive
lobby, new preschool program
for youngsters 1-to-5-years-old, a
kid’s gym, and family and community
space among its many
amenities.
Helen Keller Services, which
opened in Kings County more
than a century ago, made its home
on Willoughby Street for 65 years,
and is now excited for a new chapter
to even better support its employees
and clients in the new
space, according to the head of
the center.
“People were very pleased with
the outcome of the building, from
our employees who work there, they
love it,” said Joseph Bruno. “And
the people we treat and work with
can come to a place that’s dignifi ed
and accessible and says to them, ‘We
care about you,’ from the very premise
itself. It was a very successful
event.”
Bruno was joined by local pols,
including Bedford-Stuyvesant
Councilman Robert Cornegy and
Fort Greene Councilwoman Laurie
Cumbo, who pitched in some funds
to help build out the new center, he
said.
“Thanks to all the educators and
advocates ensuring all our communities
have access to services,” said
Cornegy on social media.
— Julianne Cuba
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS
Find happily ever after
Standing O salutes the panel
of Brooklyn judicial bigwigs who
led a Jan. 8 discussion about how
local lawyers and do-gooders can
use matrimonial mediation to
facilitate more peaceful divorce
proceedings for Kings Countians.
The practice helps couples reach
agreements about the parameters
of their divorce — including
terms of custody and fi nancial
settlements — which would otherwise
be decided for them by a
judge in a courtroom, according
to the judge who led the hour-long
event at the Brooklyn Bar Association.
“It allows people to reach a
resolution with the experience
of a mediator who’s not going to
tell them what to do, but who’s
going to facilitate helping them
coming to a resolution,” said the
Hon. Jeffrey Sunshine, Kings
County Supreme Court Justice
and the Statewide Coordinating
Judge for matrimonial
cases.
Sunshine led the event at the
Remsen Street space — located
between Henry and Clinton
streets — with the help of a slate
of lawyers, including Brooklyn
Women’s Bar Association president
Carrie Anne Cavallo, Collaborative
Family Law Center
director Jean Norton, and
Brooklyn Bar Association family
law co-chairs Aimee Richter
and RoseAnn C. Branda.
The event came just before the
presumptive matrimonial mediation
pilot program rolled out in
Kings County and two other districts
across the state, according
to Sunshine, who added that the
program will ease the process of
divorce for couples experiencing
it.
“It certainly is a quicker,
less emotionally and fi nancially
draining process,” Sunshine
said. “How wonderful is it that
people can resolve their differences
on their own, instead of
having somebody in black robes
decide their lives?”
Standing O congratulates
Sunshine and everyone else involved
in the program.
— Julianne McShane
KUDOS: Joe Bruno, the president and chief executive offi cer of Helen Keller Services,
snips the ribbon on its new Downtown facility, along with Fort Greene Councilwoman
Laurie Cumbo and Bedford-Stuyvesant Councilman Robert Cornegy.
Photo by Trey Pentecost
Do-good group expands D’town
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