Four Rye Neck High School students – seniors Sonia Finkenberg, Jonathan Marcuse and Owen Robertson, and junior Dylan Spencer – have been honored with a 2020 St. Vincent’s Youth Award for their commitment to serving their community.

Having started ASAP Scraps Composting Inc., a nonprofit community compost pickup service, in May 2019, the students have been instrumental in making their community more sustainable.

“It feels very rewarding to be honored with this award, as we have put in hundreds of hours of community service into building this business, and it is a great feeling to be recognized for this accomplishment,” said Marcuse, CEO and president of ASAP Scraps Composting. “We will keep the spirit of this award close to us as we continue to benefit our communities for our whole life.”

After realizing that their village’s composting system was underutilized because it required residents to bring their compost to the recycling center, the students launched a service to eliminate that inconvenience. Each week, they collect and deliver composting for community members who register for a nominal monthly fee. Any profit beyond operating expenses is donated to environmental charities.

“Seeing the impact that we have made on our community through both the volume of compost we have delivered and the money we have raised is extremely rewarding to us,” Marcuse said. “Our plan would be to replicate our business model in other towns in order to achieve the same success. The greater impact we have, the more rewarded we will feel.”

Each week, the four students drive to each of their 68 subscribing households – a list that continues to grow – to collect the compost. They empty the individual compost bins into a larger collection bin before driving to the village’s recycling center, where they unload all compost into the municipal collection bins. To date, they have collected approximately 9,500 gallons of compost, or the equivalent of 3.2 concrete mixer trucks, 50 hot tubs or 220 bathtubs.

"To most, food scraps seem gross, but, for me, I find the buckets of waste absolutely beautiful,” said Finkenberg, CCO of ASAP Scraps Composting. “I love being part of a much bigger environmental movement, so physically picking up food scraps has been so rewarding.”

Finkenberg, Marcuse, Robertson and Spencer are the organization’s founding members, along with Daniel Ricci, a Class of 2019 graduate.

Presented by St. Vincent’s Auxiliary, the 2020 St. Vincent’s Youth Awards recognize high school students whose volunteer service exemplifies St. Vincent’s Hospital Westchester’s core values of respect, integrity, compassion and excellence. For more information on ASAP Scraps Composting, visit https://www.asapscraps.org/.

Rye Neck High School student Naomi Young has been selected as one of the top three winners in the Palace Theatre’s 2020 Emerging Young Artist Scholarship Awards for her original, one-act play, “Twentyfour.”

“I’m so proud of Naomi,” theater director Scott Harris said. “In her three years as a Rye Neck High School theater student, she has taken intermediate acting and advanced acting classes, played leading and supporting roles in our musicals and also served as a Thespian Officer.”

Young’s play will be presented via a Zoom reading, performed by professional actors later this month. She is the third Rye Neck student to be selected for this prestigious honor.

“These consistent wins really demonstrate the talent and hard work of Rye Neck’s theater students,” Harris said.

In addition, Young was selected as a winner of the Student Monologue Challenge by the Manhattan Theatre Club, a major producer of Broadway and Off-Broadway theater in New York City, for an original monologue.

Rye Neck High School seniors Grace West and Heonjae Lee have earned the school’s top honors. They were named the valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively, of the Class of 2020. Having put time and effort into their schoolwork, both accomplished students said it was rewarding to receive the recognition.

West attributed her success to the support of her teachers and the close-knit Rye Neck school community.

“The fact that I was supported by people who really cared about me individually gave me the tools to be successful,” West said. “I spent essentially my entire life at Rye Neck, so it is very special to me. It is where I was able to grow and find some of my favorite people. Being able to get to know people on a personal level and feel supported by so many is something very special and very unique to Rye Neck.”

Over her high school career, West has been member of the Student-Athletic Cabinet, Mock Trial and Model United Nations teams. She also served as captain of the varsity volleyball team and was a member of the varsity track team. Outside of school, she has served as a debate instructor, youth deacon at her church, research assistant at NYU Langone Health and intern at a digital startup.

Having moved to Rye Neck from South Korea and overcoming numerous challenges, Lee said the recognition is especially meaningful to him. He attributed his success to his self-motivation.

“It truly gives me confidence to further challenge myself in the future,” he said. “Rye Neck helped me find out my field of interest, which is developmental and urban economics. I will miss my supportive teachers and friends, who were easy to reach out to and willing to collaborate and help.”

Over his high school career, Lee has been a member of the Rye Neck Science Olympiad team. He also founded the Sustainable Development Society and was a research intern at Hunter College, where he organized socioeconomic data of New York City. In addition, he has written reports on housing affordability and gentrification for the City of New Rochelle and Mamaroneck.

The soon-to-be graduates said if they could give any piece of advice to the incoming freshmen, it would be to set their own goals and values, discover their passions and stay committed to them.

Lee will attend Columbia University, and West will attend Vanderbilt University.

Members of Rye Neck High School’s Mock Trial team participated in the annual Law Day event, held virtually on May 4. Organized by the Westchester Women’s Bar Association and the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the event brought together more than 300 attendees.

During the event, the students presented a one-hour trial in the United States vs. Phoenix Jones case. The case is about Phoenix Jones, who is accused of conspiracy to receive and sell stolen goods under the alias of Emery Rose. Meanwhile, the event’s attendees served as jurors and rendered a verdict via an online poll at the conclusion of the trial.

“The students did a fantastic job of presenting the case of United States vs. Phoenix Jones, and the participants of the program enjoyed listening to them,” said Marcella Scalise, a social studies teacher and team coach.

In addition, the event featured presentations from several legal professionals, such as judges, lawyers and an FBI agent, who discussed their careers and respective roles in the legal system. The Law Day program is designed to educate participants about civics and government to help them understand their role as informed, active citizens in the legal system.