Local Couple to Be Honored as Keuka College Event Returns

The presentation of the Stork Award is on the community’s fall schedule after being delayed by the pandemic.


Wednesday, July 28, 2021

KEUKA PARK, N.Y.—After a year’s hiatus as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, one of Keuka College’s most anticipated events, the presentation of the yearly Donald and Corinne Stork Award for Community Service, will mark its return to campus during the Fall 2021 semester. 

The 2021 Donald and Corinne Stork Award for Community Service will be presented to Jeff and Wendy Gifford on Thursday, Dec. 16. They were nominated for inspiring youth in the community and their continuing efforts to make their corner of the world a better place.

Jeff serves as president and CEO of Birkett Mills and has served on the Wayne Bank Board. A long-time basketball coach at Prattsburgh Central School, he took his love for local sports and turned that into a mission to help kids in any way he could. Wendy, a member of the Keuka College Class of 1978, worked as a nurse manager of the Family Birth Center at Geneva General Hospital and as a nurse in the Prattsburgh Central School District. Now retired, Wendy volunteers at the Keuka Comfort Care Home and numerous COVID-19 vaccination clinics in the area.

The College established the award to recognize individuals who exemplify its historic commitment to the value and benefit of using individual initiative for the common good. It was named after the first recipients of the award in 1991, the late Donald and Corinne Stork.

A second annual event, the county-wide day of service, Celebrate Service…Celebrate Yates, has been rescheduled for the spring of 2022.

CSCY is a joint collaboration between the Yates County Chamber of Commerce and the College, the event supports non-profit agencies across Yates County and is meant to foster stronger relationships between members of the College community and its neighbors.

More information will be available here on the College’s website, in advance of both events.