The Crew
(more info coming soon)
Mary-Ellen Rozak- Producer - interviewer
Mary-Ellen and her brother Guy originated the Very Nice People Society, during the spring of 2002 while watching baseball.
Mary-Ellen is mother to a twelve-year-old son, Jack. In 1995, she underwent surgery to donate part of her liver to Jack who was eleven months old at the time and suffering from an incurable liver disease called Biliary Atresia. Today Jack is an all-star basketball player and on the first place team in his little league. In the first two years following the transplant, she worked for a non-profit children’s group to help other parents who have children with the same disease. In 1996 she organized activities to promote Organ Donation Awareness Week including making an appearance on Good Day New York.
Mary-Ellen currently works full time in the financial industry as well as runs the day to day operations of the Society. She is team mom for her son’s basketball and baseball teams. She helped established a local sandlot baseball team in the summer of 2005 for local children who wanted to play ball all summer. She has created the concept of the Team Yearbook and produced four seasons worth of books already, in addition to reporting every game her son plays in, on his team blog.
Mary-Ellen is also an avid animal rescuer. At the current moment, she has one dog and five cats in her care (one with half a tail). They were all rescued or foster animals. She works hard to pass on this love of animals to her son and his friends.
Mary-Ellen also has a few book ideas in the works; one being a letter to her son, Jack, to explain his transplant procedure to him.
Mary-Ellen and Jack are avid Yankee fans, both minor and major league!
According to her mother, she is her favorite daughter, an excellent mother and an excellent friend.
Nick Rozak- Producer - cameraman
Nick, aka GUY, originated the idea for the Society with his sister, Mary-Ellen in 2002 while watching his nephew’s Opening Day ceremony at Little League. He is currently a full time college student finishing his degree in Anthropology at HunterCollege.
He started volunteering with children at the age of ten for the Staten Island Children’s Museum. When he became a teenager, he volunteered at The Chinese’s ScholarsGarden and he was honored as the volunteer of the year in 1997. Later he was employed there as tour guide and became very knowledgeable with the culture and customs of the Chinese people.
He has traveled extensively; spent a summer driving to California and back, went to Rome for World Youth Day and sang in the New York Choir for the Pope, spent a month in Russia with a friend, toured Germany with his choir, and studied in Ukraine for a month while living with a local family there.
Guy is an artist, a musician (a bagpiper with The Staten Island Bag Pipers), a tenor in a choir, an Eagle Scout, a godfather, a certified bartender, an excellent friend and according to his mother her favorite son.
Guy has a unique way with teaching children, especially Boy Scouts. He is currently training to be a counselor.
He is passionate about the bagpipes, creating Ukrainian Easter Eggs, cycling, bartending, traveling, canoeing, camping, his dog George and Halloween.
Upon graduation, he looks forward to a long journey with the Society, a career in Real Estate and whatever else the future may hold for him.
Little known fact about Guy: He is famous in Ukraine. He played the Irish Bagpipes while in Ukraine to celebrate the 4th of July, an American holiday!
Jack Rozak - assistant cameraman
Jack is helping his mother and uncle tremedously with the Society. He has supplied many of the "Nice" slogans in addition to commenting on product ideas. He is supplying the twelve year old point of view for all of our work. He is also walking the dog more!
Mark - creative consultant
pending
Frank Laurents - consultant
pending
Adrian L Acosta - photography editor
Adrian lives in New York City where he is currently hard at work on his first book. He enjoys drawing/painting (a passion he's had since birth), as well as taking photographs (prints for sale @ AmnesiaSparkles.com) between searching for a literary agent and studying astrology.
Adrian is looking forward to collaborating with such organizations as PFLAG, the Human Rights Campaign as well as raising funds and awareness concerning HIV and AIDS.
To learn more about Adrian's art work and photography as well as performance dates and/or appearances please visit AmnesiaSparkles.com One of Adrian's photographs of the Staten Island Ferry is displayed in our store.
Little Known fact about Adrian: His dream is to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his corporate band.
Melissa Chapman - website editor
Melissa Chapman has been a featured writer and editor for the past ten years. Her byline can currently be found in the Relationships section of the Staten Island Advance and as a contributing writer for the pregnancy & parenting channel on www.iVillage.com, www.diverseparent.com and Lifestyles magazine.
Allison Curtis - editor
pending
Scared! - consultants - editors - jacks of all trades
Within the first HOURS of our sight being active in November on myspace, we were contacted by SCARED!
They complimented us on doing something creative for the Island and they wanted to meet the other creative people on the
Thankfully, they came through with an offer. After the holidays we solidified the deal and scheduled part two of the shoot.
SCARED will be helping us on certain shoots, with technical advise and eventually with editing. And anything else our creative minds come up with next!
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