Life’s WORC Celebrate 50 Gala
50th Anniversary Gala to Honor Famed Journalist Geraldo Rivera & Life’s WORC Founder Victoria Schneps-Yunis
Life’s WORC is proud to “Celebrate 50” this year, marking fifty years of service to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Life’s WORC will host their 50th Anniversary Gala celebrating the hard-working people of the organization, and will honor Trailblazing Journalist Geraldo Rivera of FOX News, and Life’s WORC Founder Victoria Schneps-Yunis, President & Co-Publisher, Schneps Media.
They invite you to join them in celebrating their homes, non-residential programs, Family Center for Autism, and Supportive Employment program at the Celebrate 50 Gala on Friday, April 1, 2022, from 6:30pm – 10:30pm at The Garden City Hotel in Garden City, NY. The longtime, leading broadcaster and hometown Long Islander Bill O’Reilly will be the Gala Keynote Speaker.
Celebrate 50 is a year-long acknowledgement of Life’s WORC’s proud past and a commitment to a promising tomorrow. While they honor and are grateful for Life’s WORC’s history, the journey has truly just begun.
For more information, please visit lifesworc.org/celebrate50/
About Geraldo Rivera:
One of media’s most enduring broadcasters, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist Geraldo Rivera is the Fox News Correspondent-at-Large. A rotating co-host on “The Five,” Geraldo provides regular reports and commentary on FNC’s “Fox and Friends,” “Hannity,” and various programs on Fox News and Fox Nation. Geraldo joined the network in 2001 as a war correspondent following the 9/11 attacks on his New York hometown. From 2001 until 2012 Geraldo reported from every hot spot on earth, including eleven assignments in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rivera began his 51-year career as a television reporter at WABC-TV in New York where he presented the historic series exposing the deplorable conditions at the Willowbrook State School for People with Developmental Disabilities for the population then described as mentally challenged.
These powerful reports are credited with ending America’s policy of institutionalizing the developmentally disabled, leading to government investigations, institutions across the nation being eventually shut down and the civilized world adopting small, community-based housing as the alternative. The subsequent sea change in the treatment of the mentally disabled is considered by Geraldo to be his most important life’s work.
The winner of the 2000 Robert F. Kennedy journalism award for his NBC News documentary on “Women in Prison,” his third, and the Scripps Howard Foundation national journalism award for “Back to Bedlam,” Rivera has received several hundred awards for journalism, and community service including the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award, three national and seven local Emmys, two Columbia-DuPont and two additional Scripps Howard Journalism Awards.
Prior to joining Fox News, Rivera, an attorney, covered the globe for ABC News; hosted a widely viewed series of syndicated specials, including the highest rated in history, “The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault.” His eponymous talk show ran for eleven successful seasons. He later hosted CNBC’s number-one rated show, “Rivera Live,” where his critically acclaimed coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial verdicts and the Clinton Impeachment set all-time CNBC ratings records.
Follow Geraldo @GeraldoRivera
Geraldo for Fox News www.foxnews.com/person/r/geraldo-rivera.html
About Life’s WORC:
In 1971, Victoria Schneps-Yunis founded Life’s WORC, originally the Women’s Organization For Retarded Children, with women in her Bayside neighborhood. They volunteered and helped raise money for the people at the Willowbrook State School. Victoria’s activism was inspired by her daughter Lara who was brain damaged after her birth.
In 1972, after severe budget cuts by Governor Rockefeller, reporter Geraldo Rivera revealed the atrocious living conditions at the Staten Island-based Willowbrook State School, which was the country’s largest institution serving people with developmental disabilities and autism. The story helped gain national media attention, which led to the school’s ultimate closing, forced on the state by parents winning a Federal Class Action lawsuit.
Life’s WORC went on to purchase the first group home for children in New York State in Little Neck, Queens. The first residents were young people who previously lived at Willowbrook and some who came from their homes.
The organization has continued to grow in New York City, as well as Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island.
Life’s WORC also runs Day Habilitation Programs, the Family Center For Autism (FCA), and the newly created Job Training Center for People with Special Needs.
Life’s WORC is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.
