Thank You Notes from BHSEC Recipients
by Deborah Lanser
Introduction
For years, LLI has provided financial help for students in the Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) program in New York City for expenses incurred during summer internships. This year, four students in BHSEC’s schools each received a $562.50 scholarship grant. The thank-you letters they wrote President Alan Katz show their sincerity and creativity. LLI members can be inspired by their optimism and proud that we have supported their community activities. Here are some edited excerpts of what they had to say.
Amena Arshad
Dear Alan Katz,
I am writing to thank the Lifetime Learning Institute for awarding me a grant of approximately $565. With this support, I developed a website titled Hearing Each Other Out, a platform that provides resources and personal perspectives for New York City’s hard-of-hearing community.
The website includes several components. First, I created a multi-series blog about my personal journey with hearing loss to raise awareness among those who may not understand what it is like to navigate the world as a hard-of-hearing person. I also hope it can serve as a space for community and mutual understanding. One series, “What I Wish I Knew,” shares the vulnerable and honest advice I wish I had known earlier in my hearing journey.
The second component is a collection of articles highlighting medical, educational, and speech resources available to the hard-of-hearing community in New York City. Many of these resources are not widely known or advertised.
My website is now live and available to view here: hearingeachother.com. Working on this project has let me pursue my passion for closing educational gaps in society while strengthening my sense of purpose and well-being. I am incredibly grateful that your support gave me the opportunity to turn a personal passion into a resource that I hope will continue to support others.
Thank you again for this incredible opportunity and for believing in my project.
Amena Arshad
Sirajuddin El-Shafei
Dear Alan Katz,
Thank you and the Lifetime Learning Institute for funding my volunteer work at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery this summer. On account of our new funding, the program is flourishing into an essential part of the community.
I have tutored migrants at the church for the past couple of years, however, summers are frequently sluggish compared to other parts of the year. This year, our newfound plethora of academic resources allowed us to stay focused during the summer months, as well as handle a wider variety of subjects. We have more than doubled our inventory which has allowed us to support more tutors and more students accordingly.
In the past we were restricted to helping tutees reactionarily: they would come to us with homework or misunderstandings, and we would help support them. Now, we are able to go beyond support and create new opportunities for our students. It has been amazing to see the migrants really progress over the weeks and move on to more advanced work.
In addition to this we have supplemented our English-language inventory as well as our college support. One of the biggest struggles with tutoring the migrant students is the language barrier. It is hard to communicate with students who do not speak English well and harder still to teach them English without knowing a language they speak. We have acquired many new books to help bridge this gap. We also have been trying to expand our college resources, for example, SAT/ACT study books, to help these students on their academic journey.
With the new school year starting we have more tutors and tutees coming in every week with more topics to study and thanks to your funding we are able to support all of them.
Sincerely thanking you for your support and faith in our endeavors,
Sirajuddin El-Shafei
Lily Gilbert
Dear Alan Katz,
I am writing this letter to thank you and the Lifetime Learning Institute for sponsoring my summer volunteering at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. It is thanks to you that the church is becoming a vital resource and sanctuary within the community.
I have been a volunteer at the church for two years now, but this summer has come to be the most productive yet. In years past, summers were slow and barren. With fewer tutors showing up, no school, and no homework assignments for our tutees to bring us with questions or confusion, focus would become lost. But this year, with access to so many resources and learning opportunities for the tutees, we have stayed on track year-round. With more variety of materials, serving all learning-levels and subjects, we are no longer limited to our tutee’s homework assignments–we can create so many more opportunities to expand their skills and knowledge beyond the classroom.
This summer we’ve been utilizing our new tutoring methods thanks to our expanded library of resources. One thing I have found particularly helpful is our new ESL (English as a Second Language) books. Having books actually designed to meet the needs of the tutee is incredibly helpful as a tutor, because it allows you to pay more attention to the person in front of you. I’ve watched people once timid and apprehensive, completely break out of their shells. The confidence they have been building is thanks to the resources we now have available to us. It is so nice to see people feel more comfortable expressing their true selves as they’re able to in their native language. Not only have we been building skills in English, but we’ve been building connections and friendships that are so vital to the space.
With more resources, we have been able to expand our network and create a larger team of dedicated tutors. I would like to thank you again for your support of this program. As it continues to grow, our gratitude to you remains just as strong.
Lily Gilbert
Delphine Levenson
Dear Mr. Katz,
I am writing to express my sincere thanks to you and the Lifetime Learning Institute for funding my project this summer to begin curating an exhibition dedicated to supporting queer art and young artists. Over the course of my internship at Art Yard, a teaching community and residence for young upstarting artists, I gained valuable teaching experience, as well as additional internship skills.
The Art Yard community is dedicated to helping specifically younger artists by offering them a space that allows them to easily access art supplies and professional artists’ advice. Each Art Yard class begins with an introduction made by the teaching artist, followed by their presentation, time allotted for creating art, and finally a critique where artists gather to compare, contrast and compliment each other’s pieces. As an intern, I was in charge of taking inventory of our art supplies and supporting fellow teachers during lessons. Due to the generous grant from the Lifetime Learning Institute, I was able to feel more than comfortable buying the supplies required for my lesson plans.
During the second day of Art Yard Summer Session, I taught my first lesson regarding the topic of love and the variety of ways it can be interpreted. What does love mean to you? What do you visualize when you think of love? What are the different types of love that come to your mind? This lesson was meant to break through the boundaries of commercialized love in our world today and explore what love means to people on a personal level. This lesson also encouraged artists to use both their visual art making skills as well as their written skills to create one singular piece. The artwork created from this lesson, including my own, will be implemented into the upcoming exhibition featuring a section dedicated to a newfound understanding of love and its endless possibilities. This first lesson demonstrated how when given the opportunity and proper supplies, artists have the ability to create real change and express themselves on a personal level through their creations.
During the last week of Art Yard Summer Session I taught with a fellow teaching artist to create a lesson plan focused on collaborative art. We took a tour of 3 subway stations on the Q line and explored the artists: Sarah Sze, Chuck Close, and Vik Muniz. All of these artists effectively captured the experience of subway life and what it means to be a part of transportation in NYC.
As a way to wrap up the amazing summer session of 2026, students were asked to create their own metro cards inspired by the art we had seen in each station. At the end of the subway tour we ended up in Central Park where artists were able to wrap up their work and begin a thoughtful and memorable critique. We shared individual pieces, as well as the collective poem highlighting the skill of collaboration.
Due to the Lifetime Learning Grant, I was also able to use money for my personal pieces that I completed while I was at home outside of my internship. The money went towards the majority of my supplies and restocking what I had run out of over the course of this year. Due to the fact the exhibition is still in its curating phase, I am also setting aside additional money for the execution of this project.
Delphine Levenson
