The Roslyn Landmark Society is pleased to share that two Roslyn High School students, Sydney Spier and Sienna Santos, have completed their terms as 2026 Gardiner Young Scholars, a program supported by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation that places young people at the center of original local history work.
Sydney served as one of the the Society's Young Scholars, researching and writing articles on the Roslyn Grist Mill and the Roslyn Paper Mill, conducting interviews with longtime trustees, and extending her work into a series of social media reels highlighting local landmarks including the Clock Tower and the Grist Mill. Her writing appeared in the Roslyn News-Times, the Long Island Press, and on the Society's own website.
Sienna's path to the program was unconventional: she initially volunteered without the scholarship after the second spot was awarded to another student, cataloging and scanning historic photographs and documents from the Society's archive simply because she believed the work was worth doing. When circumstances changed and the Society was able to apply her hours toward the program, she was named a Young Scholar on the strength of work she had already completed without expectation of recognition.
Both students brought genuine curiosity to their hometown's history, and both leave having contributed something lasting to the Society's archive and public-facing work. We are grateful to the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation for its continued investment in the next generation of local historians.
You can view their reflections on their time in the Young Scholars program below.
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