The Katonah Museum of Art has announced its honorees for the 2013 Benefit, to be held on Saturday, April 27th at the Museum. The Benefit, called “Kaleidoscope,” will celebrate the myriad exhibitions and people who make up the Museum and its community. In keeping with this year’s theme, the 2013 honorees are Bedford residents Leslie Needham and Tricia Swift, who have been actively involved with the Museum and other non-profit organizations in Westchester County for the past 20 years. Both honorees have contributed their time, hard work, and creative vision to numerous community-based projects.
Both Needham and Swift began volunteering at the Museum two decades ago when they moved to Bedford from New York City. The Museum provided a great opportunity for them to meet new people and to become involved in the community. Their first venture was to help with the design and implementation of the Children’s Learning Center. From there, Needham and Swift expanded their volunteer efforts and began dedicating time to several causes in Northern Westchester. Among the organizations that have benefitted from Needham’s and Swift’s vision and spirit of volunteerism are: the Bedford 2020 Coalition, the Westchester Land Trust, Rusticus
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Katonah Museum of Art Benefit Honorees… pg. 2
Garden Club, the Bedford Environmental Summit, the Bedford Historical Society, the Northern
Westchester Hospital Association, The Boys and Girls Club of Northern Westchester, the John Jay Homestead, the Rippowam Cisqua School and St. Matthew’s Church in Bedford.
“When you’re lucky enough to live in this part of Westchester County and live so close to many cultural, educational and environmental treasures, you can’t help but feel a need to volunteer and become a steward of the future,” says Leslie Needham, who founded her landscape design company, Leslie Needham Design, in 2005.
Tricia Swift, a founding principal of the award-winning Tangram International Exhibitions, Inc., an environmental design house based in Pleasantville, New York says, “There are so many phenomenal organizations in the North County, all of which are interdependent upon each other and the many people who live here. Each organization benefits from the success of the others and, like a kaleidoscope, these projects and their respective organizations amplify and multiply the quality of life of everyone who lives and visits here.”
According to the Museum’s Interim Director, Belinda Roth, “The Katonah Museum of Art is delighted to honor these women who have been so vital to the development of our community. They are wonderful, giving human beings.”
The Benefit will begin at 6:30 pm with cocktails in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden, followed by dinner, catered by Abigail Kirsch, and dancing. Tickets are $350 each and tables start at $5,000. To purchase tickets or for more information, please call Christina Makrakis at 914.232.9555 ext. 2968.
