Brooklyn Bridge Rotary Club

Louisa Avanzino, recipient of the Brooklyn Bridge Rotary Club’s Leadership Award, has been a counselor at William E. Grady High School since 1992, implementing several vital programs aimed at helping low-achieving students. The school, in Brighton Beach, draws its population from throughout Brooklyn and New York’s other boroughs.

These programs include the Twilight Academy, an evening high school aimed at assisting under-credited, over-age students; the College Now Academy, which encouraged students who have lower reading and math scores to graduate from high school in four years with a New York State Regents Diploma; and the Attendance Initiative/Dropout Prevention Program, which “buddies” chronically absent students with staff members in an effort to improve their attendance and academics.  These programs have fostered a steady growth of attendance and graduation rates at Grady High School.

Louisa was raised in Brooklyn’s Park Slope and graduated from Manhattanville College, where she majored in English literature and received a Bachelor of Arts degree.

After a brief stint with the Putnam Publishing Group, Louisa decided to pursue a more community-centered career. She began teaching during this transitional period and discovered that helping children was her passion.

Louisa earned a Master of Science degree with a concentration in school counseling and personnel services from Fordham University. After completion of her master’s degree, Louisa took 36 post-graduate credits in counseling psychology at Fairfield University in Connecticut.

She has been a New York City- and New York state-certified school counselor at both the elementary and secondary levels since 1990. In 1991, she received a New York City Fund for Teachers grant to implement an HIV/AIDS curriculum she created. She has been named New York City Counselor of the Year in both the Bronx and Brooklyn four times during her career.

Louisa was an adjunct lecturer at City University of New York from 2000 through 2004.  She worked as a counselor/advocate with an at-risk student population with the Liberty Partnerships Program at Kingsborough Community College in Manhattan Beach from 1998 through 2005.

In addition to helping children, Louisa has also served the community in other ways.

She donated her horse, Max, to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation for use as a patrol horse, where he served for five years from 1991 through 1996, patrolling city parks and beaches. During this time, Louisa was an active volunteer with the parks department, exercising department horses and patrolling as an auxiliary officer in citywide events, such as the AIDS Walk in Central Park and the New York City Marathon. Louisa received the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation Service Award in 1996.

Currently, Louisa and her Labrador retriever, Lola, are a certified therapy team with the Good Dog Foundation. They volunteer in schools, hospitals and health-care facilities providing service to the aged, chronically ill and developmentally challenged individuals.