Saunders' MBK Thrives in Face of Adversity

  • Sair Duran at MBK Stakeholders Summit

    Thriving in the face of adversity is what Saunders Trades and Technical High School's MBK does best.

    Just ask one of Saunders’ MBK’s most active members, Sair Duran.

    “I love the MBK program because it’s where I can help others,” said the tenth grader. “And I’ve been through a lot.”

    Sair was born with a cleft palate. He has had 17 surgeries in his 16 years, the last one in August during which he couldn’t speak or eat solid food for two weeks.  He said it can be challenging to speak clearly, especially when he is tired, but he makes himself understood.  

    As he passes through the gymnasium, student after student high-five Duran or offer him a hearty handshake. This is a far cry from the days when he was bullied as a fourth-grader.  Today he finds camaraderie in MBK activities such as a tie collection drive designed to help Saunders’ students suit up for interviews and Yonkers Clean-Up Day, when he helped beautify city parks. Duran found inspiration in April during YonkersMBK’s Take a Student to Work Day. He ate lunch with Yonkers Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Edwin Quezada and Deputy Superintendent Dr. Andrea Coddett, both immigrants who impressed him with their personal accounts of achieving success through hard work.

    Sair also participated in Saunders’ “Birthday in a Box” project in which MBK students collected birthday party supplies for children in need. A February fire damaged the school’s main office, taking many of their collected items with it.   The fire also displaced school staff. Guidance counselors relocated to the library, and the clerical staff and administrators, including Principal Steve Mazzola and Assistant Principal/MBK Coordinator Dr. Robert Vicuña moved into a converted classroom together.

    School secretary, Eneida Alvarado, Saunders’ MBK’s Events Coordinator said, “Despite the fire, MBK is functioning very well. We all have come together as one to ensure everyone feels safe and that everything runs the same as it would prior to the fire.”

    MBK Advisor Dr. Robert Vicuna and Ms. Eneida Alvarado

    Saunders’ MBK is always mindful that no matter their challenges, there are always those more in need.

    Continuing its series of collection drives, Saunders MBK, in partnership with Lions International, set up boxes around the school for people to donate gently used eyeglasses for recycling.  Saunders MBK collaborated with the Red Cross and Yonkers Middle High School to manage an MBK clothing drive for victims of a March fire on Odell Avenue.   

    One of those teachers, Keasha Bodrick, said it’s crucial that the brothers “learn to give.” She sees community service as a fundamental character-builder for MBK brothers, in addition to being a resume-booster for college applications.

    To connect them to history and the world outside of Yonkers, Ms. Bodrick and Dr. Katrina Sparks, a Special Education and English teacher in May took students to the African Burial ground in lower Manhattan, a national monument where an estimated 15,000 free and enslaved Africans were buried in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

    Dr. Sparks worked as an intern in then-State Senator’s David Patterson’s campaign to preserve the landmark in the 1990s and was able to add her own contributions to the tour guide’s tales.

    Inspired by their MBK students’ interest and abilities, teachers said they looked forward to adding programs to Saunders’ MBK next year, possibly having Saunders students mentor elementary school students.

    Sair, who has two years left at Saunders, welcomes it all.

    “I would like to be involved as much as I can,” he said.