Yorktown Honors Ashley Bonner, Erin Maurno and Katherine Quinn

Two high school students and a Yorktown woman were honored by officials during the Yorktown town board meeting Tuesday night. 

, a 17-year-old  student, who had organized a dance show Dance 4 a Cause to help raise money for adrenal cancer research was presented with a certificate and recognized for her cause. 

"I wanted to do something to help," Bonner said of why she put together the fundraiser after finding out her aunt had been diagnosed with the rare for of cancer. Throughout the years, Bonner has been able to raise $70,000. 

( to read more about Ashley Bonner and Dance 4 a Cause.)

"You exemplify what is the best in people and really this certificate doesn't do you justice," Yorktown supervisor Michael Grace told Bonner. "We thank you and we thank you from the community, from the bottom of our hearts."

 senior Erin Maurno, who had developed a program over this past summer to aid families in need, was also recognized by town board members. 

Maurno had partnered with Community Cares - a non profit company that provides meals, laundry and cleaning services free of charge to families with school-aged children where a parent is struggling with a serious medical diagnosis. 

( to read more about Erin Maurno and her project.)

"I raised money to help make ["lots of love"] bags for the families for activities to do in bed so that they can stay close during these rough times," Maurno said. 

Councilman Dave Paganelli presented Maurno with the certificate and thanked her for her service: "You make us proud."

Katherine Quinn, director of  who was  as the nominee to receive state Sen. Greg Ball " award, was also honored during last night's meeting. 

Quinn has been providing services to women affected by breast and ovarian cancer and is the recipient of numerous awards over the years. 

"I begun volunteering when my dad took me out at 5 years old selling raffle tickets for our church and I don't know why, but I just loved seeing things happen when people got together," she said. "It began my lifetime of volunteering. One thing led to another."

She said her dad was critically injured during a mugging incident when they lived in the Bronx. Instead of "getting up and leaving and hating for no reason" they got involved with the block association to demand better police presence, which she said they got. 

"I was blessed to have people in my life who showed me you can make a difference," she said. "I just love what I do at Support Connection because every day you see people being helped and you don't want to be alone with a difficult situation."

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