Student Grants Awarded

The Mamaroneck Schools Foundation has approved funding for the following 14 student grants for the 2025-2026 school year. The student grants, which total $39,985, will have an impact on Mamaroneck High School and beyond.

 

Healthy Nutrition for Teens

Grantees: Dylan Studdert, Liam Studdert

Faculty Sponsor: Bryan Luff

This grant will fund a one-time nutrition education and food prep workshop for MHS students. The session will feature a registered dietitian who will speak on the benefits of healthy eating and demonstrate simple, nutritious recipes appropriate for teens. The goal is to empower students to make better food choices and prepare basic healthy meals independently. The event will take place in the new MHS culinary room, which accommodates up to 30 students and will be supported by Culinary Arts teacher Bryan Luff. 

 

Impressions Magazine - MHS’s Student Art Magazine 

Grantees: Sophie Iavarone, Gabby Robb O’Hagan

Faculty Sponsor: Gwynne Bettencourt

This grant will fund professional printing for MHS’s student photography, art and design magazine. The magazine will be offered for sale to the MHS community, with proceeds used to fund future professional printing. The elevated paper copy allows for a deeper and longer lasting appreciation of student artwork within the school and wider community. This magazine highlights the value of the arts in education and promotes a deeper appreciation for student creativity. 

 

Salt Marsh Ecology

Grantees: Olivia Panzona, Alex Gill, Gabriel Pazona, Ella Golden

Faculty Sponsor: Joseph Liberti

Salt marshes help to maintain healthy water quality and protect crucial natural habitats. This grant will support a student-led environmental education program focused on salt marsh ecology, implemented through the OCRA program at MHS. In partnership with Save the Sound, the project includes a 4-week after-school program at the Hommocks Conservation Area, aimed at 7th-grade students at Hommocks Middle School. The program will provide hands-on learning about salt marshes’ role in water quality and habitat protection. Activities will include field data collection using water testing kits, ecological analysis, and environmental stewardship discussions. Data will be shared with Save the Sound and used to engage participants in community-wide environmental awareness.

 

Get Ready for Band! Wind Instrument Tryout Kits

Grantee: Ben Murabito

Faculty Sponsor: Tim Hooker

This grant will fund Join the Band Wind Instrument Try-Out Kits to inspire elementary school students to try out woodwind and brass instruments for band. These sets will allow students to experience the feel of popular instruments including the flute, clarinet, saxophone, and trumpet without needing the actual instrument to help them determine which instrument they are interested in playing. The program will be implemented through student-led clinics in the elementary schools, where high school musicians will demonstrate core instruments and guide younger students through trying them out. The goal is to improve long-term student commitment to music by ensuring a better fit between students and instruments from the start.

 

Specialized NY History Workshop 

Grantee: Claudio Castro

Faculty Sponsor: Craig Goldberg

This grant will bring New York during the Civil War to life through in-class workshops at MHS led by educators from the New York Historical Society. The lessons will focus and expand on how New Yorkers reacted to the U.S. Civil War and act as a supplement to the US History curriculum. In each session, students will examine primary sources and artifacts provided by the historical society to determine the causes and events surrounding historical events such as the New York draft riots.

 

Mental Wellness in Music

Grantee: Gina Intravaia

Faculty Sponsor: Elyse Mullen

This grant will support two sessions of a music therapy workshop for members of the Tri-M Music Honor Society at MHS. In partnership with Heartsong, Inc., the workshop will explore the relationship between music and mental wellness through hands-on sessions led by professional therapists and artists. The goal is to expose music students to therapeutic uses of music—beyond performance—to foster lifelong skills in stress management and emotional awareness.

 

Wonder Project Assemblies

Grantee: William Devendorf

Faculty Sponsor: Nicholas Malley

The myFace Wonder Project, a non-profit organization created in partnership with NYU Langone’s Center for Craniofacial Care, will present in each of the four elementary schools. myFace is dedicated to supporting individuals and families with access to state-of-the-art, personalized care for craniofacial abnormalities. The Wonder Project educates students of all ages on the importance of empathy, inclusivity, and being an upstander against bullying. These assemblies are designed to enhance the district's existing programs on anti-bullying with the goal of creating a more compassionate and empathetic student population.

 

Game On! Bringing Chess District-Wide 

Grantee: Nate Rotem

Faculty Sponsor: Kathryn O’Donoghue

MHS students will offer 6 weeks of after school chess programming to 5th graders at Central and MAS. The program will end in a tournament that will unite chess lovers from all four elementary schools. Grant funds will be used to buy instructional wall boards, chess sets, and tournament shirts for student leaders.

Growing Seedlings at MHS Community Garden

Grantees: Colin Weingarten, Lillian Zmuda

Faculty Sponsor: Joseph Liberti

Students will partner with community groups to provide fresh produce to families in Mamaroneck. The grant will be used to purchase seedlings and the equipment needed to grow fresh, culturally appropriate produce in a section of the community garden beds at MHS. In collaboration between the grantees, the MHS Garden Club, The Transition Academy and the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Hunger Task Force, the garden will be produced and distributed to the community.

 

MHS Indoor Golf Equipment

Grantee: William Cohen

Faculty Sponsor: Adam Rizzuti

An indoor golf practice area with state-of-the-art technology and golf simulators at MHS will be constructed to enhance golf opportunities for MHS and Hommocks students. Specifically, it will support the purchase and installation of two golf simulator devices and associated components (software, impact screens, hitting mats, projectors). The new equipment will significantly improve indoor practice opportunities for the MHS boys and girls teams, who currently lack facilities on non-match days and during inclement weather. The equipment will also benefit the Hommocks Finding Fairways program, which introduces golf to new players and will be integrated into the MHS physical education golf unit to expand beyond putt-putt.

 

American Rocketry Challenge

Grantees: Jordan Metsch, Ethan Bregman, Lucian Keefe, Gabriel Mercado

Faculty Sponsor: Karen Hall

This grant provides supplies for model rocketry building in support of the A.R.C club at MHS. The A.R.C club introduces students to the science and engineering aspects of model rocketry. As a team, students will use 3-D modeling software and 3-D printers to build and fly a model rocket that is competition-ready for the American Rocketry Challenge.

 

MHS Hackathon

Grantees: Mustafa Khan, Luka Mincemoyer

Faculty Sponsor: Christopher Mannina

Learning how to code and computer science is an essential skill to prepare for the ever-changing world. This grant will expand experiential learning opportunities for students in the MHS Computer Science Club through a two-part initiative: (1) hosting the inaugural MHS Hackathon, and (2) supporting the development and deployment of student-built applications using industry-standard tools like AI, DevOps, and cloud infrastructure. This grant will allow students to translate theoretical concepts into real-world problem solving by working on fast-paced programming challenges and collaborative development projects. Hosting a hackathon locally will increase accessibility and expose a broader range of students to coding. App deployment training will provide firsthand experience with cloud platforms and modern software workflows.

 

STEM Outreach Program

Grantee: Maya Hammarley

Faculty Sponsor: Robert Hohn

This grant will launch a STEM Enrichment Outreach Program targeting 5th grade students from each of the District's four elementary schools. The initiative, led by MHS students, will offer two engaging, hands-on STEM workshops hosted at the MHS STEM Co-Lab, allowing incoming students and their families a view into future educational opportunities. Activities will include projects like constructing simple machines and robotics challenges. The program aims to ignite early interest in STEM by exposing students to exciting, advanced concepts beyond the regular curriculum and providing access to high-quality materials and mentorship from high school role models. It also promotes collaboration and community-building between school levels.

 

Building Healthy Relationships 

Grantees: Maya Schein, Thalia Estus

Faculty Sponsor: Lauren Onorato

This grant will fund a presentation at MHS by Ashley Bendiksen, an award-winning activist and expert on domestic violence, teen dating violence, sexual assault, and resilience. A survivor herself, Ashley went on to become her high school valedictorian and now uses her personal story to empower and educate others. Her program will teach students what healthy relationships look like while helping them recognize and respond to the many forms of abuse—emotional, verbal, psychological, and physical. Given the sensitive nature of the topic, the presentation will be delivered in a smaller group format to allow for a more meaningful and supportive experience.