JNESO Awards Belleville Teen $1K Scholarship

JNESO, the professional healthcare union, has announced the recipients of the Public Servant of the Year Award and three college scholarships.

“We are extremely proud to present the 2019 awards to these amazing individuals,” said Douglas Placa, Executive Director of JNESO, the healthcare union that serves some 5,000 nurses and techs across New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

JNESO has selected three, $1,000 colleges scholarship winners. The scholarships are named after board members or leaders whose efforts have had a positive impact on JNESO members and the organization as a whole.

Amanda Lynn Vera of Belleville, N.J., received the Barbara Crosby Memorial Scholarship. Vera is a senior at Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child and hopes to pursue a degree in Biomedical Engineering. She is an honors student and volunteers at Saint Michael’s Medical Center where her mother is a critical care nurse and a JNESO member.

“Being the daughter of a single mother, I am extremely grateful to have won this JNESO scholarship and help my mom more readily take on the financial responsibility of college,” said Vera. “The scholarship will open up my breadth of collegiate options to ones that had previously proved to be a little too expensive for my family.” Vera is still deciding which college to attend, but options include New York University, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and Brown University.

Samantha Martin of Canadensis, Pa., is the recipient of the Laura King Memorial Scholarship. Martin is a senior at Evergreen Community Charter School and plans to study Chemical Engineering at either Penn State University or Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Martin’s mother is a JNESO member and an ICU nurse at Lehigh Valley Hospital – Pocono.

“I was so thrilled to find out I was selected for a JNESO scholarship,” said Martin who is fascinated with chemistry and environmental science and dreams of developing products to help solve food shortages around the world. “Research is very important for my academic ambitions. The schools I am considering attending have amazing programs, however the resources they provide also cost a fair amount of money. The scholarship will help me be able to attend a school with plenty of resources to further my studies and expand my interests.”

Nancy Rauch of Pine Hill, N.J., is the recipient of the Virginia Spiegel Memorial Scholarship. She has been a nurse for 32 years at Virtua Hospital in Voorhees and plans to major in Paralegal Studies in Nursing at Rowan University. Rauch is a JNESO member and has been a strong union advocate especially regarding safe staffing issues. She believes that “Knowledge is Power” and plans to expand that knowledge through her studies at Rowan.

Representative Maureen Madden, a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (District 115, Monroe County), has been selected as the JNESO Public Servant of the Year.

“Rep. Madden was chosen for her ongoing support and commitment to healthcare, safe staffing and labor issues in Pennsylvania,” said Placa.
Rep. Madden has been a strong proponent of the PA House Bill 867 which addresses Nurse to Patient Ratios in Pennsylvania hospitals. The bill would fix the minimum ratio of patients to nurses to better correspond with the nature of the hospital unit to help improve patient safety. Rep. Madden also supports and is a co-sponsor of the Workplace Freedom Act which would ease and streamline the process of establishing a union.

The awards were presented during JNESO Education Day held at the Sands Hotel & Casino in Bethlehem, Pa. Education day is part of JNESO’s ongoing commitment to making sure nurses have access to the latest information and training on important issues that can affect patients and the healthcare profession.

To learn more about JNESO visit www.JNESO.org.