Suffolk County Legislator Tom Donnelly (D-Deer Park) recently honored Half Hollow Hills East sophomores Blake Rabinowitz and Noah Rabinowitz as his 2024 Suffolk County Youth Week Award Honorees.
Blake Rabinowitz is making a significant impact on young people struggling with stress and mental illness. Despite her busy schedule with swimming, honors classes, speech and debate, mock trial, and community service, Blake took the time to plan and present a workshop on how she found relief from stress and anxiety for the Half Hollow Hills Mental Health Awareness Day in January. In the workshop, she shared her personal experience, discussed the benefits she derived from journaling and writing poetry with her peers and distributed journaling kits, alongside her collection of poems, to help others feel less alone and consider doing the same. Additionally, Blake’s compassion extends to the elderly community through her initiative “happy heARTs” where she shares art and poetry with the elderly, bringing them joy and comfort.
Noah Rabinowitz created “Noah’s Community Cakes,” an initiative that serves his community by baking cakes for Mercy Soup Kitchen in Wyandanch. Noah’s original mission was to bake 100 cakes that he hoped would bring both sustenance and joy to those facing food insecurity. With the support of the One World Youth Club’s fundraising program and his dedication and energy to inspire others to join him, Noah has far surpassed his initial mission. His new goal is to bake 1000 cakes by his 18th birthday, highlighting his unwavering dedication to service.
Although chosen as dual winners based on their individual accomplishments, Blake Rabinowitz and Noah Rabinowitz also happen to be twins! They were recognized along with all other honorees at the Suffolk County Youth Week Awards Ceremony, held at the H. Lee Dennison building on May 14 and then honored with Proclamations at Legislator Donnelly’s district office on May 29.
“With Blake’s commitment to assisting those with mental health challenges and Noah’s hard work in helping those less fortunate through baking, it was clear I had to select both of these outstanding young individuals as my 2024 Youth Week Award Honorees. It was quite a remarkable coincidence that the two most outstanding nominations I received happened to be siblings and twins and I knew I needed to recognize both – not a co-winners but as dual winners. They each to our community in such a unique ways, and it is an honor to celebrate their efforts,” said Legislator Donnelly.
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