Author: jeff

Freda R. Savana

Lenape Valley Foundation has tapped David Herold as its new chief executive officer, the Doylestown-based behavioral and mental health services nonprofit recently announced.

Herold has spent the last eight years working in business development for St. Luke’s University Health Network. Since 2020 he has been its assistant vice president of business development and strategy.

At Lenape Valley Foundation, he will take over the position held by Sharon Curran, who is retiring after more than two decades leading the organization.

“I am proud to join the team at Lenape Valley Foundation as we continue to devise creative solutions and partnerships to meet the needs of those we serve and help make our communities stronger and healthier,” said Herold, in a statement.

A Bucks County native, Herold brings more than 25 years of experience in behavioral health and social services to his new role, which he’ll begin June 3, the foundation said.

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While at St. Luke’s, he spearheaded efforts to gain a $4 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The grant supported the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic model at Penn Foundation, according to LVF.

Rob Hutchinson, president of the foundation’s board, said he was happy to welcome Herold to Lenape Valley Foundation.

“Under his leadership, we know our organization will continue to thrive as we develop innovative new ways to improve behavioral health care in…

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It has been 400 years since the founding of what is now New York City, which took place in the spring of 1624. While it would be logical for the anniversary to be a cause for celebration, the truth is that the occasion is almost going unnoticed. One exception, however, is an exhibition titled New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam. It’s a tiny display that occupies a corner of the lobby in the New York Historical Society, an elegant neo-Roman style building located in front of the west side of Central Park.

The exhibition includes maps, objects and documents of considerable interest. Among the items is a letter in which an administrator from the Dutch West India Company, Pieter Schagen, informs his superiors about how the founding of the city took place. In 1624, the original inhabitants of the area — those belonging to the Lenape tribe — “agreed” to sell Manhattan Island for 60 florins (or 60 two-shilling pieces) to European settlers, the equivalent of $24. Located at the southern tip of the island, the colonized territory was called New Holland, while the inhabited core was called New Amsterdam. In 1664, when the English took possession of Manhattan, the enclave was renamed “New York.”

Three groups made up the original New York City: the settlers of European origin, the Native Americans and the slaves who were forcibly brought from Africa. The commissioner of New York Before New York — Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World, a magnificent chronicle on the history of the Dutch colony — invited the descendants of the Lenape people to write a letter in response to Schagen, 400 years after the deceptive transaction. In the response — which can be seen in the…

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