2022 Raise a Glass Awardees

Congratulations to 2022 Civic Engagement Excellence Awardee Dr. Linda LeMura, President, Le Moyne College, and 2022 Community Champion Awardee Jan Maloff, Founder, CNY Bicycle Giveaway

2022 Civic Engagement Excellence Award

Dr. Linda LeMura

Dr. Linda LeMura, President, Le Moyne College

Dr. Linda LeMura is a scientist and academic who is the current and 14th President of Le Moyne College. She is the first female layperson to be named as president of a Jesuit institution of higher education in the United States. Since 2014, when she was appointed president unanimously by the College’s Board of Trustees, Le Moyne has achieved seven years of its largest class enrollments. Dr. LeMura has also overseen the completion of the $100 million Always Forward campaign, the largest campaign in the College’s history. A hallmark of her time in office is developing collaborative partnerships with other institutions of higher education. She is actively engaged in the greater Syracuse community to improve the lives and education of those in the Central New York region. A much-quoted expert in the financing of higher education, Dr. LeMura is a strong advocate for increasing Pell Grants to address racial and economic inequities in higher education access and completion rates. Previously, she served Le Moyne as the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs from 2007 to 2014 and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 2003 to 2007. Previously, Dr. LeMura served as a professor and research scientist in the Departments of Biology and Health Sciences and Exercise Physiology at Bloomsburg University. She served as Graduate Program Director and Interim Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research interests include pediatric obesity, pediatric applied physiology, and lipid and energy metabolism. She has been a research consultant for the U.S. and the Italian Olympic Committees and is the author of over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, and numerous externally funded grant proposals. Dr. LeMura earned a Ph.D. in Applied Physiology from Syracuse University and a B.S. summa cum laude from Niagara University. She and her husband, Lawrence Tanner, Ph.D., a professor of Environmental Systems Science at Le Moyne, have one daughter, Emily.

2022 Community Champion Award

Jan Maloff

Jan Maloff, Founder, CNY Bicycle Giveaway

As a child in Syracuse in the 1960s, Jan Maloff loved riding his bicycle to school and through his neighborhood. He noticed that his classmates who lived at Elmcrest Children’s Center had no bicycles and didn’t get to enjoy the freedom and thrill he did from those two wheels. Even at a young age he knew that helping others was the right thing to do, so he and his friends would stay after school many days just to let their friends from Elmcrest ride their bicycles. He recalls thinking that “if I ever got rich, I would buy every kid a brand-new bike.” This thought stuck with him for decades, and he says that, though he never got rich, he got fortunate. In 1996, he started a foundation to give bicycles to children and adults in need. Today, the CNY Bicycle Giveaway provides thousands of bicycles a year to help people be more independent and self-sufficient. Bicycles for adults help them get to employment, shop for necessities, and access social services. Children get needed exercise, playtime, and a way to get to school, family, and jobs. Seeing the need for better community-police relations, he works directly with police departments to give bikes to officers so they can give them to kids and establish positive relationships with them from a young age. Each year, he hosts a large bike giveaway at Fowler High School with more than 2,000 bikes, along with other events throughout the year. He also has a repair trailer that he sets up in different parts of the city to hold pop-up clinics to fix bikes and teach people how to care for and repair their equipment. In the last 26 years, he’s given away more than 50,000 bikes to the community and the number given away continues to grow every year. Jan lives in Dewitt with his dog Chip and is a funeral director who manages the A. Dewitt Memorial Funeral Home.

Visit www.cnyfamilybike.org/ to learn more about the CNY Bicycle Giveaway.