Photography and video - Enoch Bekoe
ABC 2020 - COVID-19
Director/Executive Producer/Writer - Scott Peterman
Producer - Keetin Mayakara Writer - Cat Davis
Editors - Mollie Goldstein, Shelley Elizabeth Carter
Photography/Cinematography - Louis Zieja, Matt Roveto
Sound - Eugene Kim, Steve ‘Major’ Gimmaria, Craig LoGiudice
Director/Executive Producer/Writer - Scott Peterman
Producer - Keetin Mayakara Writer - Cat Davis
Editors - Mollie Goldstein, Shelley Elizabeth Carter
Photography/Cinematography - Louis Zieja, Matt Roveto
Sound - Eugene Kim, Steve ‘Major’ Gimmaria, Craig LoGiudice
Director/Producer/Cinematography - Leah Galant
Cinematography - Lucy Adams, Cesar Martinez, Kevin Marsielle
Sound - Lydia Cornett, Maya Cueva
Editor - Leah Galant
Photography and video - Enoch Bekoe
ABC was delighted to welcome Kathie Lee Gifford at Cassidy’s Place, ABC’s preschool for children who are medically fragile, live in poverty, have serious disabilities, are homeless, in foster care, or have suffered abuse and neglect. Founded in 1996 with the support and dedication of the Gifford family, Cassidy’s Place has been serving some of NYC’s most vulnerable children for 23 years. In partnership with GrowNYC, Gifford helped children plant basil, rosemary, and more in the Cassidy’s Place playground to celebrate the beginning of spring. In the newly-named Gifford’s Garden, children at Cassidy’s Place dedicated a bench in her honor as thanks for her years of advocacy.
Producer - Pete Scudese
Director and Filmmaker - Leah Galant
Sound - Maya Cueva
Director - Jesse Ruuttila
Director of Photography - Charlotte Hornsby
Field Producer - Danny April
Director & Editor - Daphne Schmon
"Just the other day, I was walking down 116th Street when a big, handsome man walked up and gave me a hug. I’d first met him when he was 7. He was the oldest brother in a family of four who were housed in a nearby shelter. When he came to us, his father had just committed suicide by drinking Clorox in Central Park. His father had been mentally ill, and before he killed himself, he had told the boy that he’d kill him too. So the boy kept having dreams. He kept dreaming that his father was Uncle Scar, and he was coming to kill him. He became obsessed with The Lion King. He stopped going to school. He stopped looking at people. When you approached him, you couldn’t move too quickly, or he’d be terrified. But we started working with him, and he started to improve. We discovered that he was an ace at math. And all these years later, I just ran into him on the street. He was 6 foot 5’ and buttoned up in a suit! He seemed very happy and has a great job at an embassy now.”
- Gretchen, Founder of Association to Benefit Children
“After my mother died, the four of us bounced around in foster care. Luckily we were all able to stay together. After several years of moving around, we eventually found a permanent home. Our new parents were Fidia and Luis Figuereo. I remember the first day we arrived at their house. They were cooking up a storm. I can remember exactly what they were making: rice, yellow beans, and steak. Atthat point I assumed that it would just be another foster home, but we soon became a family. The Figuereo’s had two kids of their own, so there were six of us total. All the girls were in one room and all the boys were in another room.
Do you remember the moment you began to see them as your family?
“I do. I got in trouble at school one day because I wouldn’t take off my hoodie in class. And I remember Fidia showed up, and I thought: ‘Oh crap. Here comes Mom.’”
- Erick, volunteer & former client of ABC
"In the early 90’s, we had a brownstone on 91st street where we cared for homeless babies that were HIV positive. In the backyard there was a mural that showed a flock of doves escaping from a cage. Every time one of the babies passed away, we’d paint their name beneath one of the doves. Most of the babies died. But a few of them lived. And Erick is one of the ones who did."
“I began as an accidental witness. I was running a preschool program, and I went to Church Street for some bureaucratic thing—I needed a piece of paper. And I just happened to walk in the wrong door. And in that room I saw homeless families waiting to be processed. Some were sleeping on plastic chairs. There were babies sleeping on bare mattresses. Some didn’t have diapers. I ran to the store and bought bread, peanut butter, and apple juice for everyone. Then I used the three quarters left in my pocket to call The New York Times and The Red Cross. Ever since then, I’ve been an advocate for the homeless.”
The 9th Annual Morton Deutsch Awards for Social Justice
Gretchen Buchenholz received the 2013 Morton Deutsch Scholar-Practitioner Award. Watch to hear her speech titled A Child’s Tale: Marginalization to Power.
Who inspires TODAY's Kathie Lee Gifford?
Kathie Lee on Gretchen Buchenholz, co-founder of Association to Benefit Children and fierce advocate of children's well-being.