Our Founders
Dr. Eloise L. Young
Dr. Eloise L. Young is the founder of Young Faces Smiling, which provides an enrichment program to students. Always giving of herself in service to God, Dr. Young had a vision to help those in need and once the opportunity presented itself, she was unhesitant in establishing this organization. The foundation of her success is ‘Serving People’.
Born one of seven children to Daniel and Helen Young, Dr. Young grew up in the Fairview Greenburgh area, where she attended Greenburgh/White Plains Public Schools. An Honors graduate of The College of New Rochelle, Dr. Young gave her life to God and at the age of 22 having received a divine call to serve in the ministry.
To prepare herself, Dr. Young enrolled at Manhattan Bible Institute in New York City under the auspices of the late Dr. Edward Boise, where she read for an undergraduate degree in Theology and a Masters in Religious Education. She also holds a Certificate of Counseling from New York Theological Seminary. Dr. Young is also a graduate of the Westchester Business School.
Dr. Young has served as Chaplain of the Westchester County which involved counseling residents of the various County institutions located in Valhalla, namely, the Department of Corrections, the Psychiatric Institute, the Geriatric Center and the Westchester Medical Center. Working alongside the Social Services Department, Dr. Young helped to promote a Sesame Street Program which allowed children of inmates to be transported to the facility once a month to spend time with their mothers. A businesswoman in her own right, Rev. Young owned and operated Religious Hut, the first Christian Bookstore in the town of Greenburgh.
A forerunner and trailblazer of the gospel, Dr. Eloise L. Young has taken the message to inner city street corners, beneath tents and into affluent communities nationwide, crossing racial lines and cultures. She shares the gospel via the Vision of Hope Telecast Ministry, a weekly telecast aired via Public Access every Monday in Portchester, on Wednesdays in Greenburgh and Sundays in White Plains and Yonkers.
Dr. Young’s impact has been far reaching and a dissertation expounding her religious beliefs and philosophy has been placed in the Law Library at Harvard University.
In the heart of Dr. Young are America’s youth and the people at large. Under divine direction and inspiration, she has envisioned and established Young Faces Smiling.
Ardella McClarty
Ardella McClarty co-founded Young Faces Smiling following her experience as a teacher and administrator in the New York City public school system. Born and raised in Harlem, she was also disappointed at the kind of coverage received in a New York Times front-page article that focused on all of the negative things on her block and set about changing that.
Ms. McClarty is a permanent certified New York State teacher for grades pre K through 6 and has taught in New York City public schools from 1995 until 2004. She also holds a certification in advanced study in Educational Leadership and Administration in the field of School Administrator and Supervisor. Since that time, she has been involved in a number of entrepreneurial endeavors. Dr. Young continued to remind her to return to some Harlem schools and implement the Young Faces Smiling enrichment program.
Ms. McClarty joined forces with her mentor Dr. Young to create Young Faces Smiling enrichment program where real life opportunities were used to motivate students who were at the outskirts of society unless a “drastic intervention was made.” Ms. McClarty took her students through a series of classroom exercises in which she introduced them to the concept of reading current event articles and writing pen-pal letters to celebrities/entrepreneurs. Ms. McClarty began by having them read magazine articles of different individuals, following which she coached the students to write letters about their dreams of success to those individuals they were interested in knowing. These letters included concerns, questions and comments about the article. This “Reality Teaching” technique inspired her to broaden her horizons and became the basis of her entrepreneurial venture.
Ms. McClarty credits Dr. Young as well as her mother Alice McClarty with her own success and is confident that through Young Faces Smiling they will be able to positively impact a generation which is often times not remembered and sometimes forgotten.
Ms. McClarty is assured that by using an imaginative and exciting curriculum that integrates popular culture themes with core educational requirements, Young Faces Smiling will play a critical role in transforming the learning experience of students from socio-economically challenged schools into an engaging, confidence building an academic skill enhanced journey.
Ms. McClarty is currently working on her Doctoral degree in Educational Leadership in which she is using Young Faces Smiling as her primary research.
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