Joseph Cice, social worker, advocate
Joseph Cice, social worker and children’s rights activist, was killed in a car accident May 9, 2004, near Boulevard, Calif. He was 37.
Mr. Cice was born Dec. 18,1966, in Stamford, the third son of Joseph and Evelyn Cice of Ridgefield. He attended Ridgefield public schools and became a memorable student at Ridgefield High School.
“He lit up every room he walked into,” recalls Ridgefield High School . teacher/dean Marc Katz, who worked with Mr. Cice on the annual M.D.A. dance and other activities. “You knew he was special.”
While a student at the high school, Mr. Cice served as a class officer and helped to found G.I.S.T., a student relief organization that eventually raised several hundred thousand dollars to help fight famine in Africa. He graduated in 1985.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science from Harvard University, Mr. Cice moved to northern California where he worked in the public health field in the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco. His experiences working with homeless, abused, and neglected youth there helped shape his later work as a counselor and child advocate.
After moving to San Diego from the Bay Area in the early 1990’s, Mr. Cice earned a master’s degree in social work and health administration at San Diego State University.
Over the next 10 years, Mr. Cice became director of social work for the Lakeside Union School District in suburban San Diego and a prominent child advocate in southern California.
He founded the Lakeside Teen Advisory Board, a collaboration among the clinic, schools, social and law enforcement agencies, teens, and parents, which has become a model for other districts in the region.
He spearheaded the drive for a regional teen center providing after-school social and psychological services to students. The center opened in December 2003.
Mr. Cice also became a prominent public spokesman on issues threatening to youth such as racism, violence and homophobia. He held public workshops after violent incidents in Lakeside and nearby Santee, and insisted on non-violence and racial justice in his work.
“Joseph worked tirelessly to make the community center much more open to kids of all backgrounds,” says Dr. Bronwen Anders, medical director of the facility. “He was absolutely one of a kind.”
“He was one of the most positive and hard-working individuals I have ever encountered,” says Lakeside Union School District Vice-Superintendent Sam Mreshon.
“He touched so many lives that there is no gauge on how many students he has helped through the years.”
At an impromptu memorial service held last week in the Lakeside school district, Mr. Cice’s colleague Marissa McFederies commented, “Joe was the kind of person you liked right away. Especially kids. He really loved and cared about them, and they saw that. They could open up to Joseph like no one else in their lives.”
While his hectic schedule kept him hopping in the East County, he also found time to travel to Russia several times to coordinate and teach Russian agencies the proper way to work with their homeless and dispossessed children. He was working on adopting a Russian child at the time of his death.
Mr. Cice is survived by his parents, Joseph and Evelyn Cice, of Ridgefield; his brother, Christopher, of Brookfield; his brother, Gregory, of Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. and his aunt, Antoinette Cice, of Ridgefield.
A memorial mass will be held tomorrow, Friday, May 28, at Sacred Heart Church in Georgetown at 1:30. A reception will be held on the church grounds immediately following the mass.
Contributions in his memory may be made to the Lakeside Union School District, c/o The Joseph Cice Student Safety and Family Support Fund, P.O. Box 578, Lakeside, CA 92040.