Father’s Day and Juneteenth 2023
Dear JCCA Community, This is one of my favorite times of year. Summer has arrived, and so has Pride. Graduation ceremonies will be here before we know it. And this weekend we’re treated to a rare double holiday: Father’s Day and Juneteenth. To the fathers,...
Juneteenth Jubilee
Happy Juneteenth! JCCA celebrated with the third annual Pleasantville Campus Juneteenth Jubilee, organized by the campus’s phenomenal recreation team. The event brought our residents, staff, and friends together for an exuberant afternoon that included BBQ, music, a...
Staff Spotlight: Liticia McKnight
On the occasion of her retirement we spoke to beloved Pleasantville Cottage Campus veteran Liticia McKnight about her career and the inspiration behind it. What led you to working with youth and to JCCA? I’ve been in the field pretty much my whole career. Right away I...
A Tree Grows in Pleasantville 2023 – Event Wrap-Up
Saturday’s A Tree Grows in Pleasantville party was an absolute blast. We smashed our previous fundraising record and had a great time doing it. After a few years without a Tree, the room was buzzing with energy as nearly 300 guests reconnected with each other and with...
Message from CEO Ronald Richter: Mother’s Day 2023
I wish a wonderful Mother’s Day to everyone in the JCCA community and beyond. Though one day is wholly insufficient, we embrace this occasion to honor the mothers and mother-figures among us, including foster moms, aunts and grandmothers raising kids in kinship care,...
JCCA Blue Day
In honor of National Foster Care Day and Mental Health Awareness Month, the inaugural JCCA Blue Day was held last Tuesday, May 2. It was JCCA’s first-ever day of giving and our community came to life––both in person and online. In the lead up to Blue Day, our LEAP...
Sharing the blessings: A conversation with Goldwasser & Chan
In the summer of 2022, Craig Goldwasser and Andrew Chan reached out to JCCA. The longtime friends had launched their eponymous law firm a few months before, committing to giving 10% of their firm's earnings to charitable causes in the community. Less than a year...
Debunking Misconceptions Surrounding the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
By Danielle Capra, LCSW April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. The commercial sexual exploitation of children, or CSEC, is one form of child sexual abuse that is often misunderstood. CSEC refers to crimes where individuals buy, trade, or sell sexual acts with...
2023 Volunteer Appreciation Dinner
The cherry blossoms were blooming again on the Pleasantville campus and it could mean only one thing: it was time for JCCA’s annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. The PCS dining hall had been outfitted with balloons, a tasty buffet, and at each seat was a booklet of...
Staff Spotlight: Katie Rodriguez
Where does your story start, in general and with JCCA? I was born upstate and raised in the Bronx. My parents immigrated to U.S. from Central America when they were teens. For my first few years we lived in a housing project in the South Bronx, not far from JCCA’s...