Bridges to Community recognizes Alcorn and Sarna

By JEFF MORRIS

Bridges to Community, a nonprofit dedicated to community development in Latin America, is having its annual gala on Thursday evening, Oct. 9, honoring two people who have been integral to the community: Paul Alcorn and Diane Sarna.

Alcorn was pastor at Bedford Presbyterian Church for nearly 30 years, retiring in 2018. He co-founded the Emergency Shelter Partnership, the Westchester Youth Alliance and the Rewarding Potential Scholarship. He also served on the Bedford Central Board of Education.

Sarna recently retired after 26 years as an English teacher at Fox Lane High School. She led students on almost 20 trips with Bridges to Community, and is being recognized as the first recipient of the newly renamed Diana Tyler Bridge Builder Award. 

Tyler, who passed away in June, was the former co-owner of Kelloggs & Lawrence in Katonah and was a co-founder of Bridges to Community with her husband, Bart. According to the group, the Diana Tyler Award “recognizes individuals or institutions that have made a significant contribution to the organization through volunteer impact, service learning, and global engagement,” and “honors someone/entity who demonstrates the values Diana Tyler embodied.” 

Sarna is said to have been “a tireless advocate for the program — leading the school club, organizing trips, and positively influencing hundreds of students” over nearly two decades. “She has also championed access, ensuring that low-income students could participate fully and benefit from these transformative experiences.”

Diane Sarna

“I got involved close to 20 years ago as a teacher at Fox Lane,” Sarna told The Recorder. “I had a student ask me if I could help with a donation for a trip he was going on to Nicaragua, to build a house. He said they were having an information meeting at the local church in Bedford Village, where the Rev. Alcorn was going to speak.” This was before Fox Lane had its own trip, Sarna said. She gave a donation; the following year Fox Lane started their own trip, and the year after that, the person who had run the trip needed to step down. 

“They interviewed interested teachers; a colleague from the English department and I were chosen to take over the leadership of the trip and the Bridges to Community Club, and that’s how we started.”

Sarna said the reason that student approached her was because she was already well-known for being involved in a lot of community service. She ran a number of school clubs, including an intercultural exchange group, and did volunteer work with the homeless. 

“My colleague, David Albano, and I chaperoned probably between 14 and 15 trips each,” Sarna said. “We would sometimes step out and allow another teacher to go, because we really want the trip to last long after we are no longer a part of it.”

Sarna described the experience as “life-changing.”

“We talk a lot in school about the ‘Bedford bubble’ — how the kids really don’t know about life outside of this area, and going on a trip to a developing country like Nicaragua, or more recently the Dominican Republic, it changes everyone who participates. Usually with teenagers you only see them for a year or so, and you don’t get to see a finished product. But when you go on a trip and you build a tiny house with a group of kids, and you work alongside the person who will live in that house, it can’t help but make you change, and you get to see it. It makes you want to do it over and over again.”

Sarna said the trips brought her a lot of joy.

“I like to be a helper,” she said. “Something important about Bridges is, you’re not swooping in and saving the day in your cape; you are working hard alongside community members, and they are expected to pay it forward with the next community member, who will work on a house or a pipeline or a new latrine — whatever the project community determines. You’re working alongside people, not fixing things while they watch. I looked so forward to the trip, not only for my own personal feelings of helping, but to see my students — that’s something special for a teacher — to see your students grow and change before your eyes.”

She noted it is not for everyone.

“I know a lot of people my age may really not want to go on a trip where you might not have running water or electricity, and you’re going to work really hard and maybe stay dirty for a whole week, but I really was passionate about it,” she said.

Sarna said she doesn’t see her connection to Bridges ending just because she has retired; she has already done some fundraising and volunteered to step in if a chaperone is needed.

“I think it’s evolving,” she said. “We’ll see where it takes me.”

Paul Alcorn

In 1995 Carter Via, the executive director of Bridges to Community, approached Alcorn, knowing he had led service learning trips for high school students to Southwest Virginia, about a possible trip with the group. In 1996 he led his first trip to San Simon, El Salvador, to help with the construction of a chicken coop which would house 400 chickens and, when completed, would provide both food and income for the community. That first trip led to an ongoing relationship with Bridges which included serving on the board of directors, and a six-month role as executive director when Via decided to step down. 

“Growing up, my entire travel to a foreign country was going to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls,” Alcorn told The Recorder. “All of a sudden, I am in a little community in El Salvador, building a chicken coop. It was the first time in my life where I realized the world was bigger than the world I grew up in. It opened up my eyes, and forced me to think about my relationship to the global community in a very different way.”

“One of the key questions in Christian scripture is, ‘Who is my neighbor?’” said Alcorn. “I began to realize that my definition of neighbor, from a little community outside of Pittsburgh where I grew up, now was suddenly much bigger. I think the people who went with me on that first trip had a similar experience, and it encouraged us to keep doing it. It fundamentally shaped who I am as a person, and how I think about the communities in which we live.”

In the early 2000s, Bedford Presbyterian Church partnered with Temple Shaaray Tefila to support an interfaith trip. For more than 10 years, those two congregations participated in an annual trip which often included more than 40 high school students and adults. Those trips led to the creation of the Fox Lane group. 

“There were a number of high school kids that had gone with me to Nicaragua, when we were going with Shaaray Tefila,” Alcorn said. “A number of students said they wanted to start a BTC group. Some of them started trips through Fox Lane and some through John Jay.” 

Though Alcorn never actually went on a Fox Lane group trip, he spoke at a couple of orientation sessions, and now is thrilled that Sarna is being recognized.

From his first trip in 1996 to his most recent trip this past summer, Alcorn said, “my experience with Bridges has challenged me and grounded me and renewed me.”

Now living in Maryland, Alcorn’s involvement with Bridges did not stop when he left Bedford Presbyterian. He said he went on a trip again about 18 months ago, and then again this past summer with a group of about 13 people, to build a house in the Dominican Republic.

He said he looks forward to coming back for the dinner and visiting old friends from his 30 years in the area.

The Bridges to Community Leadership Dinner is Thursday, Oct. 9, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., at Davenport Mansion, New Rochelle. For more information, visit bridgestocommunity.org/event-details/2025-leadership-dinner.