Hewlett, Hauppauge students win award for anti-bullying efforts
Amy Petrocelli, senior at Hauppauge High School, was awarded the Friedlander Upstander Award. Credit: Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County
Students from Hauppauge and Hewlett won a local award for acting as “upstanders” against bullying.
Hauppauge High School senior Amy Petrocelli and George W. Hewlett High School sophomore Sophie Riegel received Friedlander Upstander Awards from the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County and the Claire Friedlander Family Foundation, in conjunction with the Nassau County and Suffolk County police departments.
The teenagers had submitted essays describing their efforts standing up for others. The award came with a $3,000 scholarship.
“The bottom line is we all need to do the right thing and be good people,” Petrocelli said.
Petrocelli, 17, has been vice president of Student Council, a track team captain with All-American honors, and president of Best Buddies Club and Ignition, a peer-mentoring program. She is an executive board member of her school’s DECA Chapter and on the Town of Islip’s Anti-Bias Task Force.
Riegel, 16, is a member of her school’s cross-country and track teams, youth leadership club and math tutoring club. Last month, she placed eighth nationwide as a competitive race walker in the New Balance Nationals Outdoor in North Carolina, and last summer she helped build a house in Nicaragua through the Union for Reform Judaism’s Mitzvah Corps.
“Bullying is the reason kids kill themselves,” Riegel said. “If kids stick together it makes a big difference.”
Sophie Riegel, student at George W. Hewlett High School, was awarded the Friedlander Upstander Award. Credit: Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
