LLI Gives Grants to BHSEC Students’ 2025 Summer Work

by Gretchen Lytle

Introduction

Each year LLI provides grants to students in Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) to support them during the summer between their junior and senior years of high school when they volunteer to work and learn in specific areas of interest. There was a bumper crop of applicants this year. Four students in BHSEC’s New York City schools stood out to receive each of the $500 scholarships LLI grants.

Matteo Edesess-Hardy

Matteo Edesess-Hardy (BHSEC Manhattan) will continue to expand and support the tutoring program he started at the migrant welcome center at St. Mark’s on the Bowery. This program recruits and supports high school and college students, mostly from BHSEC, to provide academic support and English language socialization to unaccompanied minor migrants who are working to complete NYC public high school. In particular, this money will be used to purchase books that the young migrants can keep.

Mina Glanz

Mina Glanz (BHSEC Queens) will advance her interests in expanding arts education through her nonprofit organization, Brushes & Beyond. She will host a free art summer camp for preteens aimed at enhancing their creativity and fostering a love for the arts.

Gideon Mizner

Gideon Mizner (BHSEC Manhattan) will work as an intern at Earth Matter, an environmental nonprofit on Governor’s Island that seeks to reduce organic waste in New York City’s garbage stream by practicing and promoting composting. He will learn about the composting process from start to finish, helping to collect waste, enrich soil, plant and harvest vegetables, and take care of animals.

Zephyr Sosin

Zephyr Sosin (BHSEC Manhattan) will intern at the New York City Central Labor Council collecting, relocating, and organizing historical data relating to the Triangle Fire and subsequent labor advocacy in conjunction with the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, as well as aid in organizing the annual Labor Day Parade.

Background of BHSEC

The BHSEC program creates public high schools where students can earn up to an associate’s degree from Bard College, with transferable college credits, alongside their state high school diploma, entirely tuition free. In this model, high school students pursue an intellectually inspiring course of study in the liberal arts and sciences. At the same time they earn up to 60 credits towards a two-year head start on higher education at no cost to them or their families. LLI first connected with BHSEC through the late Dean Stuart Stritzler-Levine, who was deeply committed to education broadly throughout society. He was instrumental in supporting and developing both LLI and BHSEC.