Jayne Pierce, Lower East Side Librarian Honored For Outstanding Service To Her Community, October 16

New York, October 20, 2000 -- Jayne Pierce, Branch Librarian at the Hamilton Fish Park Library on the Lower East Side, has been chosen to receive The New York Public Library's Maher Stern Award for Service Excellence. The award ceremony will take place on Monday, October 16, at 10:00 a.m. at the Hamilton Fish Park Branch located at 415 East Houston Street, near Avenue D. In attendance will be Dr. Paul LeClerc, Library President; Norman Holman, Director of The Branch Libraries; Allison Stern, founder of the award; library staff; and children from Our Lady of Sorrows parochial school.

Ms. Pierce and her staff serve a multi-ethnic population that includes Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorians, Chinese, African Americans, and Bangladeshi. They have demonstrated a committed involvement to neighborhood enrichment and work closely with many community-based organizations.

Allison Maher Stern, who with her husband Leonard Stern endowed the award for a ten-year period, will present the $1,000 prize to Ms. Pierce. The award, which is used to further enhance the Branch's service, honors a librarian and his/her staff for excellence in community service.

"Ms. Pierce deserves this distinguished recognition for all the wonderful things she has done for her branch and its neighborhood," Dr. LeClerc said. "She has taken remarkable steps as a librarian and community leader and has been instrumental in helping the branch adapt to the changes in the neighborhood demographics, while still recognizing its core population -- children."

Mrs. Stern remarked, "Branch libraries can and do work small miracles in the City's neighborhoods. It is rewarding to be able to honor Ms. Pierce and her staff, who have worked very hard to make the Hamilton Fish Park Branch so responsive to the community it serves. We are thrilled to present her this award."

Ms. Pierce and her staff have worked with their ethnically and racially diverse community in a number of ways. In April 2000, Ms. Pierce was honored by La Bodega de la Familia, a lower East Side community organization that provides services to neighborhood residents and families coping with drug addiction. She received a plaque naming her one of the first Good Neighbors of La Bodega. Ms. Pierce is also regularly involved in community activities centered on health issues. She has taken the Cornell University Seminar on Talking with Kids about AIDS and has been on the Advisory Board of the Lower East Side AIDS Strategy Group. Her enthusiasm for her job has been chronicled by New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse who wrote, "She loves holding storytelling time for the dozen elementary school classes that visit each week. She loves leading adult book discussions. And she loves reading aloud at nearby homes for the elderly and at hospices." A 1999 profile on her in the Daily News featured her work with children.

The children and teenagers in the community have also benefited greatly from the Hamilton Fish Park staff's dedication. The branch is predominantly a "youth branch" and in the afternoons can become extremely busy with kids doing homework, attending programs, using computers, and regarding the library as their community center. Ms. Pierce and her staff are involved with outreach to 14 schools in the neighborhood; they hold the volunteer-led, Read to Me program with New York Cares, and Ms. Pierce is on the Youth Board of Community Board 3.

Jayne Pierce has been with The New York Public Library for 14 years. She started as an Information Assistant and soon won a full scholarship to go to library school. She has been at the Hamilton Fish Park Branch since 1990, where she now serves as both the Children's and Branch Librarian.
 

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