Women Front & Center 2024

Join us for an evening celebrating female empowerment, honoring three incredible women who make a difference on Staten Island!

Kim Avilez

Michelle DeSantis

Filicia Guitian

Featuring Keynote Speaker Virginia Allen of the "Black Angels"

Performance by Broadway's Analise Scarpaci

All proceeds to benefit the Lucille & Jay Chazanoff Sunrise Day Camp-Staten Island, a FREE camp for children with cancer and their siblings

The evening will include a lash bar and opportunities to make your own jewelry, floral bouquets, and more!

Enter to win a YSL pouch! Winner need not be present at event. $50 for 1 ticket, $100 for 3 tickets

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Meet our Honorees

Kim Avilez

Kim Avilez is a business owner and community impact leader. As the owner of Glow Event Management, she has overseen the execution of weddings, galas, and other social & corporate events for the past eight years. With a twenty-year background in Banking & Finance, Kim recently returned to the industry to make a difference in her community. As Vice President, Community Manager for Staten Island for JPMorgan Chase Bank, she collaborates with neighborhood leaders and organizers to break down economic barriers and support the success of their customers and community. As the firm's local ambassador, Kim nurtures relationships with Staten Island residents, community leaders, real estate professionals, small businesses and non-profit organizations. In collaboration with these groups, she hosts regular financial health workshops. At the same time, she is bringing the resources of a global firm to make a difference locally.

She is passionate about small business & economic development. As a recent Coro NY Neighborhood Leadership graduate, she uses what she learned to improve the economic opportunities for women and young girls. She is one of the founding board members of Phenomenal Women Association Inc. and co-producers of the Phenomenal Women Award, acknowledging unsung women who are making positive changes within their community. Alongside several dynamic female leaders on Staten Island served as the first President of the Minority Women in Business Association of Staten Island. An organization devoted to creating equitable spaces for historically marginalized and underserved women to have the education necessary to succeed in business and life. She currently serves as board President for the NYC Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners and Vice President of the Staten Island Community Alliance, and Events Co-Chair for New York Women in Business.

She is the past recipient of the St. George Theatre Community Impact Award, Soroptimist International Ruby Award, Staten Island Power Women in Business Award and Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition, honoring her outstanding and invaluable service to the community.

Kim is a Queens native who has made Staten Island her home for the last twenty years. She resides in Concord with her husband, Tony, and their son Antonio.

Michelle DeSantis

Michelle DeSantis, a long-time resident of Staten Island, is married to Carmine DeSantis, Esq. for 32 years and mother to two children, Matthew, age 28, and Alexandra, 25.

She began her career at Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Marketing and Public Relations and went on to work in Advertising and Marketing for the Rouse Company, a major mall developer throughout the country. There, she discovered her interest in volunteering as she began serving the March of Dimes and co-chaired the Bid for Bachelors. She also worked with Fran Huber, former Executive Director of the Staten Island Botanical Gardens, to establish an interactive natural garden in the Staten Island Mall’s Center Court.

In 1990, Ms. DeSantis took a position with the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce as Vice President of Marketing and Communications. During her tenure there, she began volunteering on various boards including Historic Richmond Town, where she worked to preserve the Perine House. She also enjoyed working with Snug Harbor Cultural Center for the Neptune Ball, at Eger Nursing Home’s Taste of Staten Island Fundraiser, and for United Activities Unlimited, where she served as Vice President.

Currently, Ms. DeSantis resides on the Board of the Staten Island Ballet, with special efforts on the Snowball, which is the Ballet’s major fundraiser, and SIB Honors, an additional fundraising supplement for the Ballet.

She is a member of the Notre Dame Alumnae Committee, helping to raise college scholarship funds for NDA graduates and inducting them into the Alumna Association.

Ms. DeSantis takes particularly great pride in serving the family-operated DeSantis Family Charitable Foundation, founded in 2002 to “help children on Staten Island with special needs, one child at a time.” In this capacity, she revues clients’ requests to deem their eligibility for sponsorship of goods or services not covered by insurance. The organization funds approximately $75,000 annually and operates solely on a volunteer basis, ensuring every dollar earned is a dollar spent on the children. To date, the Foundation has provided nearly two million dollars to Staten Island’s children with special needs.

Ms. DeSantis is a director on the Board of the Grace Foundation where she has served for five years focusing on fundraising and strategic planning. Like that of the mission of the DeSantis Foundation, Grace is driven to assist families with special needs, specifically those with Autism.

When she is not volunteering, Ms. DeSantis’ greatest pleasure is time spent with family. She enjoys traveling, reading, baking, and antiquing.

Filicia Guitian

Filicia was born and raised in Brooklyn, where she attended public school and went on to graduate St. John’s University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government & Politics and Secondary Education. She taught for the New York City Department of Education for a short time before becoming a full-time stay-at-home mother to Julianna and Joseph. Filicia and her husband, Joseph, purchased their first home in the Annadale section of Staten Island in 2003 and they now reside in Rossville.

As a young girl and throughout high school and college, Filicia has always volunteered in her community, so it was inevitable that she would continue to do so even with two small children. Filicia became very active in her children’s schools’ PTAs and volunteered in many school events as well as assisted in writing their PTA bylaws and being a member of the School Leadership Team. During this busy time, Filicia earned her Master of Science degree in Early Childhood Education and Students with Disabilities from Touro College and ultimately returned to teaching.

In 2009, Filicia returned to the workforce part-time as a Special Education Itinerant Teacher working directly with preschoolers with special needs. This was a perfect fit for Filicia as she could continue to volunteer and ease her way back to the workforce, doing what she loved, teaching. As a special educator Filicia has worn many hats and taught many different age groups, from 2-year-olds through High School. She has worked in integrated classrooms as a lead teacher and also as the director of a small preschool in Great Kills. In 2016, Filicia found her niche in special education as a reading specialist, providing one-on-one direct support to students that have reading disabilities such as Dyslexia. She now works as an independent contractor for her own agency, J & F Consultants.

In addition to her career in special education, Filicia also works as a Constituent Representative for the New York State Assembly. Filicia is passionate about advocating for her community and working directly with the constituents. She especially loves representing her office as an advocate for veterans and participating in local veteran events.

Filicia is also an active member of the Verrazano Kiwanis Club and is currently serving on their board of directors as treasurer. In the past, she has served as Secretary and Vice President. She has been instrumental in fundraising efforts, both as part of Verrazano Kiwanis and individually for local non-profits that include: Sunrise Day Camp, Staten Island University Hospital Pediatric Cancer Wing, the Canvas Institute, YMCA Counseling Service, the Grace Foundation, Project Hospitality, CP Unlimited, United Staten Island Veterans Organization (USIVO), South Shore Community Food Pantry, Wreaths Across America and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Staten Island Committee. Verrazano Kiwanis has recognized Filicia for all of her volunteerism and fundraising efforts and is a recipient of the Verrazano Kiwanis President’s award, Kiwanian of the Year award and most recently, the “VIP” award. Additionally, Filicia has been also recognized by USIVO and awarded with the “Unsung H

In Filicia’s spare time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, traveling, reading books and running – in fact, she has run many half-marathons and two full marathons, and hopes to run the New York City marathon again!

Meet our Keynote Speaker Virginia Allen

Growing up, Virginia Allen admired her maternal aunt Edna Sutton Ballard and loved to see her nurse’s uniform. It was starched white with shiny white shoes, Allen recalled. Ballard spoke of her patients and coworkers at Staten Island’s Sea View Hospital on family visits to Detroit in the 1930s and 1940s. Those stories planted the seeds for Allen who later became a nurse. Both women went on to make history as part of a group of 300 nurses who later became known as “Black Angels.” Allen, who has been a volunteer at the Schomburg Center since 2010, looks back at her 10 years at Sea View and shares a glimpse of her life at the hospital.

The nurses “gave so much of themselves to the cure of tuberculosis,” Virginia said. “Some of them, actually, risking their lives.” Virginia and fellow nurses wore protective gear such as face masks, gowns over their uniforms, and gloves as part of the safety protocol of caring for the patients who contracted the highly contagious airborne disease. “I was fortunate to have so many professional Black nurses teaching in the education department and teaching isolation techniques, which saved my life,” she added “If I did not maintain isolation techniques, I could have easily contracted tuberculosis.” Allen never did.

White nurses walked off the job in 1929, saying that caring for tuberculosis patients was too dangerous. According to Allen, the shortage created job opportunities for Black women. People were recruited from the South, the Caribbean, and Asian countries to fill the void. Some of the staff were also graduates of the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing and the Lincoln School for Nurses. “Even though the Department of Hospitals had over 20 hospitals in New York, only four of them hired Black nurses at that time,” Allen said. “They had to work in other occupations. There were no jobs available to them because of segregation.”

Patients at Sea View were from all races, backgrounds, and ages. “It wasn’t until many years later that the term ‘Black Angels’ was assigned to the nurses,” Allen said. The patients called the nurses their “angels.” The nurses who cared for them were predominantly Black. The nurses worked across Sea View’s eight pavilions. Allen began working at Sea View in 1947 at age 16. She convinced her parents to let her leave Detroit after graduating from high school, to live with her aunt, and work as a nurse’s aide. Allen did not realize the historic nature of her job at the time. “My age did not allow me to think critically about the situation at hand,” she said. “I treated the patients the way I was taught to treat them. I was young myself, so I related to them.”

Her co-workers became part of her extended family, Allen said. On days off, they attended Brooklyn Dodgers games and went to dances at The Savoy and Renaissance ballrooms in Harlem. The nurses, who were from different states, formed clubs to raise money for educational opportunities for their communities.

Virginia enrolled in nursing school at Central School for Practical Nurses in 1954 through a work-study program and graduated with honors in 1956. She left Seaview in 1957 and returned to school to take classes and pursue a career in labor relations. She advocated for members in unions Local 144, the Nursing Homes, and 1199 Healthcare workers of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Allen returned to patient care in the 1980s, working at Staten Island University Hospital until 1995. Then she moved into a private doctor’s OB/GYN practice and retired in 2005.

In 2010, Allen joined the Schomburg Center as a volunteer. Virginia is a founding member and has been active with the Staten Island section of the National Council of Negro Women since 1968. She also serves on the boards of organizations such as Cultural Crossroads in Fort Greene, the Staten Island Ballet, Frederick Douglass Memorial Park Inc., Art Lab at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island OutLOUD, and the College of Staten Island Auxiliary Board providing grants for education and vocation. She’s also a member of Lambda Kappa Mu Sorority, Inc, Lambda Chapter S.I. NY, and the Literary Society of New York.

Virginia has received accolades from a diverse body of stakeholders including Councilwoman Debbie Rose, the New York State Senate and Assembly, the Borough President, the Stapleton UAME and St. Philips Baptist Church. She has been honored with the Lambda Kappa Mu Sorority Inc.'s Distinguished Service Key and the Staten Island Advance's Woman of Achievement Award, Class of 2005. She was honored with the William A. Morris Humanitarian Award, and the Hope Community Staten Island Service Award. In 2021, Virginia received an Honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the College of Staten Island. Also in 2021, she received the New York State Nurses Association Recognition for Black History Month, as well as Health Equity and Inclusion recognition from Staten Island Women Who March.

Virginia worked on many projects with the late Jane Lyons, the former Executive Director of Sea View Hospital and Home. She was also involved with saving the neglected and rare Delft Terra Cotta Murals which are now on display in the lobby of the Robitzek Building. She received recognition as a Black Angel at the unveiling of the Sea View Murals.

Virginia enjoys music, art, the theater, and traveling. She is an avid reader.

Virginia has two amazing grandsons, a beautiful great-granddaughter and 2 phenomenal great-grandsons. Virginia’s very accomplished daughter succumbed to heart disease in 2001.

She noted, "One of my main beliefs is, that this world is all we have, and it is our duty to care for one another with love."