Boys & Girls Club Bestows Awards

The Boys & Girls Club of the Lower Naugatuck Valley presented Silvia Rodriguez, Director of the Shelton Youth Services Bureau, and Karen Bentlage, business entrepreneur, with its Raymond P. Lavietes Service to Youth award, on April 9.

The award is the highest honor the Club can present to an individual, named after beloved Club friend and supporter, Ray Lavietes, who helped make our Boys & Girls Club a frontrunner in the provision of services to youth through his dedication and commitment. This award honors an individual or individuals worthy of recognition due to their involvement in serving the youth of our community.

Silvia has built her life around serving and educating youth. She began her career as a preschool teacher and taught for 10 years while working part time for the Shelton Youth Service Bureau, as well as raising a family and continuing her own education. She served as the Youth Service Bureau’s Youth 2 Youth peer advocate advisor, training youth in communication skills, problem solving, and how to be effective role models for nearly 20 years. In 2017 she was hired full time and promoted to Director.

For nearly the same amount of time, Silvia has also worked closely with our Boys & Girls Club as Coordinator for our Smart Moves program, teaching Club members from 6 – 15 not only to ​“say no” to negative influences, but how to say no. Through this weekly program, Silvia travelled to both our Raymond P. Lavietes Clubhouse in Shelton and our Joel E. Smilow Clubhouse in Ansonia, providing programming, mentorship, and life-changing experiences for our members. When she was chosen as Director for the Youth Service Bureau, she had to give up running the program but maintains close ties, most recently matching her Youth 2 Youth members with our kindergarten through second graders in a ​“Little Brothers, Little Sisters” mentoring program.

Silvia has also taken her teaching style to Amistad Academy in New Haven, where she ran a life skills after school program. She ran the youth leadership group, Interact, for the Derby-Shelton Rotary Club and helped develop Interact at St. Martin DePorres in New Haven. Silvia served as the Derby-Shelton Rotary Club President from 2017 – 2018. She sits on the Governors Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, helping make positive change in the juvenile justice system for Connecticut. She also sits on the Planning for Children and Youth Committee, as well as the Regional Youth Adult Social Action Partnership in Bridgeport.

Silvia’s dedication and hard work were recognized by the Connecticut Youth Service Bureau in 2008 with their Youth Worker of the Year Award.

Accomplishments and accolades aside, Silvia’s measure of success is her relationship with the youth she has spent her life teaching. It is proven every time she walks in a room, whether it’s in Shelton High School where her office is located or our Boys & Girls Clubs, because the kids flock to her side. They know they can count on her. Whitney Houston’s ​“The Greatest Love of All” truly captures Silvia’s beliefs best — these children are our future, and Silvia has spent her life equipping them to meet it successfully.

“Keeping kids off the streets in an environment that promotes and encourages success is an investment worth making,” says Karen of her involvement with our Boys & Girls Club.

It’s an investment she has taken seriously. When asked to lead our Back-a-Kid campaign in 2015, she immersed herself in learning about the Club’s programs and services. Though she had already been involved with our club for four years, she needed to thoroughly know and understand what we did, so she could approach the community to ask for their support.

The response was unprecedented — under her leadership, the revenue from our Back-a-Kid campaign more than doubled.

This drive and passion are Karen’s hallmark. As a successful business owner since the early 1980s, Karen has amassed a wealth of knowledge and experience over the course of her illustrious career and has freely offered her advice and guidance to our Club from her many years as president of her own company, TK Ventures. Karen is a champion of the initiatives of her companies and does the same for our Boys & Girls Club. Karen is currently a Regional Developer for the European Wax Centers.

Since joining our Board nearly ten years ago, Karen has volunteered her time for the Commodore Hull 5k Road Race and Herbie Rollinson Memorial 5k Walk-Run, in addition to serving on multiple committees, including Development.

Karen has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Island Sun Times Lifetime Achievement Award and the American Women’s Business Association’s Achievement Award. She’s been a member of the Connecticut Chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organization since 2008, on their Board since 2010, and served as their first female President from 2013 – 2015, and received their Rock Star Status Award when the organization achieved ​“rock star status” for the first time for achieving top 10% status out of 186 chapters in 58 countries. 

Karen served as a Junior Achievement Leader from 2004 – 2010, an ITA Board member from 1999 – 2010, and is currently a member of the Exchange Club of Shelton, a Corporator of Griffin Hospital, and a member of the Business Advisory Board for Central Connecticut State University’s School of Business.

A life-long Shelton resident, Karen is also an award-winning Shelton Hall of Fame athlete. She and her husband, Twan, have two grown children, Dillon and Josie. They reside in Guilford, CT.

Also honored were Chaz and AJ in the Morning/WPLR and Robert Lesko & the DiMatteo Family Charitable Foundation. Both will receive our Champion of Youth Award, the highest honor we can bestow on an organization.

Called Connecticut’s most popular morning radio show, Chaz & AJ in the Morning debuted in 2003 and has dominated that number one spot ever since. The pair are known for their wit, open dialogue, unwavering support for local community organizations, and their service to their listeners. 

Part of their community support includes their annual Toy Drive at Jordan’s Furniture in December. This past year the drive raised more than $192,000 in cash and toys, which they donated to five local charities, including our Boys & Girls Club, Thanks to their incredible generosity, we were able to provide every Club member with their own Christmas present. Chaz and AJ have received the industry’s most prestigious Marconi Radio Award from the National Association of Broadcasters, as well as numerous community service and reader polls awards. The cast of Chaz & AJ in the Morning includes Chaz, AJ, Pam, Phil, a building full of radio professionals, and a family of listeners they refer to as the ​“Tribe.”

Chaz is an alumni of our Boys & Girls Club. He grew up listening to WPLR and his first job was maintenance assistant at TEAM, Inc., through a program for underprivileged children. The next summer, through the same summer job program, he was paid to learn basic radio skills at WLNV in Derby. In 1986 he became an intern at WPLR and went on to become a part-time night host. Today he is one of the most successful personalities ever to hit the airwaves in Connecticut. Because of Chaz & AJ, WPLR is known as a powerhouse radio station throughout the radio industry.

The DiMatteo Family Charitable Foundation was established by the DiMatteo Group more than a dozen years ago as a tribute to Anthony ​“Tony” DiMatteo, the late father and company founder who had been battling cancer at the time. Tony always put the interests of others first, and those lessons continue to live with the organization today. The Family Foundation, in conjunction with the annual golf tournament, is committed to supporting organizations that benefit their family, clients, and staff. A committee of 20 volunteers runs the popular golf tournament year after year. Since its inception the Foundation has contributed close to $400,000 for various, well-known local and national charities that fund research, education, and finding a cure for diseases. They’ve also expanded their philanthropic scope to include the needs of those in the community, and our Boys & Girls Club has been a beneficiary of their support for years. Robert Lesko works with both the commercial insurance lines and the firm’s tax and accounting division, and is an active member of our Board of Directors, serving on our John ​“Red” Larsen Golf Committee, Insurance & Legal Committee, and Development Committee. 

Countless times Rob and his wife, Loretta DiMatteo Lesko, have stepped in to come to the aid of a Club family in need or to provide needed resources at a critical moment. Rob is Board Chair for the Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce and a graduate of Sacred Heart University. Rob and Loretta enjoy time with their two daughters, Alyssa and Natalia, and their spouses Eric and Nick.

Automated Services, Patrick Knott, and the Valley Parish Nurse Program were honored with the From the Heart Award.

Michael Dadonna is the founder and general manager of Automated Services LLC, an amusement games and vending company in Milford, CT. He started the company in 1971 at age 18 and has operated it for the past 47 years. Michael is a passionate supporter of several local and national charities and organizations whose missions are focused on the needs of disadvantaged and sick children. He initiated and underwrote a children’s Learn to Swim program at the Bridgeport YMCA, has worked closely with The Kennedy Center to provide employment opportunities for teens and young adults with special needs, and is a major fund raiser for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Michael is a long-time supporter of our Back-a-Kid annual appeal, and our Club benefits from the proceeds of his vending machines located in our building. He also provides games room supplies for all our Units, as well as repairing our broken game equipment.

After serving as head of Construction for Birmingham Utilities & H2O services for 21 years, Patrick Knott opened Conn-Professional Water Services in 2005. He recognized that service to small town customers was lacking and becoming increasingly impersonal, and he felt compelled to start a business that could fill the service gap. Over the past ten years, Conn-Professional Water Services has donated to St. Mary’s Church in Derby, St. Mary-St. Michael School in Derby, Valley United Way, and St. Joseph Church in Ansonia, as well as our Boys & Girls Club. Patrick donated a trailer-mounted hot dog cart that our kids love, as well as a storage container for our Joel E. Smilow Clubhouse. And thanks to Pat, we have water service to our new splash pad water park which opens this year. Pat has also assisted numerous individual families in need. He is grateful to the community which always supported him and his family and plans to continue giving back.

The Valley Parish Nurse Program has been visiting our Boys & Girls Club for decades, providing health, wellness, and safety education for our kids. Through interactive play programs, our kindergarten-through-second-grade members have learned about topics from germs to bike safety monthly in both our Raymond P. Lavietes Unit in Shelton and our Joel E. Smilow Unit in Ansonia. In an effort to bring no- or low-cost CPR, Automatic External Defibrillator (AED), and First Aid training to their parishes and community, the Parish Nurses took instructor training and found community partners to donate equipment and funds for training. In 2004 the American Heart Association designated the Valley Parish Nurse Program a True Community Training Center, the only one in New England.

The Nurses provide free training every year to our staff in CPR, AED, First Aid, Safe Sitter, and Blood-Borne Pathogens to ensure that our summer camps are in compliance with state licensure requirements. The Parish Nurses brought their traveling Griffin Mobile Resource Van to our Herbie Rollinson 5k Walk-Run every year and for many years they partnered with our Boys & Girls Club to provide the annual Children’s Health & Safety Fair. The safety fair has since moved to Ansonia and is held every October, and our Lavietes members continue to help produce the event. The Valley Parish Nurse Program continually looks for ways to serve both the community and our members and brings new opportunities to our Clubs.

For more information about the Boys & Girls Club of the Lower Naugatuck Valley visit us at www.BGC-LNV.org