The Services We Provide
Something Good in the World, Inc. is an affiliated group of concerned teachers and parents seeking to improve the situation of education in America. As a team, we bring together our collective experience and knowledge to try to offer the best possible educational alternatives for children, teachers, and parents.
Something Good in the World, Inc. provides services to the public in the form of educational programs for children of all ages and backgrounds. These programs include a wide variety of extracurricular, alternative, and curriculum-based programs, in schools and outdoors, in private and public spaces that extend to homeschooled children, children with learning differences and children in underserved areas.The activities range from academic arts-integrated and outdoor education programs for Pre-K through Grade 12 (Earth School), to creative arts workshops and field trips for teens (The Blue Star Youth Movement), to music and storytelling for families (Sounds Good), to community garden and landscape projects for all ages (The Children’s Peaceful Garden).
Our services are often given on a volunteer basis to communities and groups throughout Westchester County and the greater New York area, as well as the district of Ka’ū on Hawai’i Island (Something Aloha). Our services are funded primarily by family foundations and grants, with donations from individuals and community businesses.
Something Good in the World also offers educational services for adults, such as training sessions and seminars for parents and teachers, in order to further the concepts of our learning approach in the classroom, outdoors in nature, and at home. We foster the understanding that the preservation of our inherited and shared physical environment is achieved through practice of the principles of sustainability.
Non-Discriminatory Policy: Something Good in the World, Inc. and its affiliates admit children and students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to children and students at or through the organization. Neither Something Good in the World, Inc. nor its affiliates discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in the administration of educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other organization-administered programs.
Board of Directors
President: Barbara Sarbin
Barbara is the Director of Something Good in the World. She has a Master’s Degree in Humane Education and is currently pursuing her Doctoral Degree. Barbara has been the lead teacher and curriculum developer for the Earth School programs that take place in the Children’s Peaceful Garden since 1999. She guides the Earth School-to-Farm programs for refugee children, shelter youth, and K-12 students from underserved areas. Recognized as a visionary in nature-based, arts-integrated education, Barbara teaches K-6 Arts for the Kaho’iwai Center’s Post Baccalaureate Certificate of Teaching program, leads workshops for the Farm-Based Education Network, and has been a guest blogger for the Jane Goodall Institute, the Edible Schoolyard Project, and Project Wild Thing. SGITW’s Children’s Peaceful Garden design was recognized by the United Nations and the Jane Goodall Institute in 2016 as an example of Peace and Sustainability, and Barbara currently serves as a JGI Roots & Shoots “Garden Ambassador.”
Secretary: Elizabeth Colquhoun
Elizabeth worked as a Senior Marketing Research Analyst at the Reader’s Digest Association. She has been involved as a volunteer and employee with Something Good in the World since its inception in 2002 and supports the mission of the organization. Elizabeth received a degree in History and Education from Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY. She spent several years teaching in a private school and in the public school system and occasionally volunteers as a tutor.
Treasurer: Witt Barlow
Witt is a Senior Executive Vice President at Gahagan & Bryant Associates, an engineering firm specializing in dredging projects, including their environmental monitoring. Witt holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, along with a BS and MS in Civil Engineering from Columbia University.
Board Members
Joan Dalton: Joan lives and volunteers in Dartmouth MA. She is a member of the Farm Advisory Committee at Sharing the Harvest Farm at the Dartmouth YMCA. Her involvement includes helping with seeding, planting, harvesting and processing the produce which is distributed free of charge in nearby communities with limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables. She also assists with farm education leading elementary school groups on field trips to the farm. Joan is a volunteer librarian and tutor at Our Sisters’ School, a tuition-free middle school for girls in New Bedford MA, and has her BA in Art History from NYU.
Colette Kabasakalian: A licensed real estate broker since 1998, Colette currently works for William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty. She became an accredited Eco Broker in 2009 and a certified Distressed Property Expert in 2011. Colette graduated from the State University of New York at Oneonta with a BS in Business Economics and a minor in Art History.
Janka Pavelek: Janka earned her BA in Economics from Wells College. She is a senior account manager for Metric & Multistandard, a leading distributor of industrial hardware. In addition,she spent several years in Reno, NV helping to set up the company’s fifth branch office and establish a West Coast presence. It was during this time that she earned her MBA from the University of Phoenix. Since returning to NY, Janka has been involved in animal care and rescue volunteering with the SPCA.
Rommy Urrutia: Rommy has been providing bilingual accounting and legal services to the Latino community in Westchester for over 30 years. She is a New York state certified legal interpreter, has a B.A. in Psychology from Pace University, and founded “Hispanos Unidos” in 2014 in Mt. Kisco, NY. Rommy has volunteered for Something Good in the World for many years and serves as a translator for SGITW’s educational programs for refugee children from Central America.
Sherri Young: Sherri has over thirty years of professional experience in the design industry. She is currently Senior Graphic Designer at Premium Productions, Inc., in Pleasantville, NY. Sherri studied at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City. She started working professionally while still in school on freelance projects and went on to gain a breadth of experience in the print industry, traditional ad agencies, a greeting card startup, and in direct mail and online/offline publishing.
Advisory Board Members:
Maria Barlow
Natasha Thomsen
Jimbeaux Black
Leslie Davis
Eric Foxhall
Marianne Fulgenzi
Sara Garcia
Tony Kearney
Gayle Lamb
Jean McGee
Jana Platina Phipps
Mark Siegel
Alan Weiss
Paul Zeir