Winner of the 2001 Brooke Russell Astor Award Receives $10,000 From The New York Public Library, Thursday, October 25

New York, October 24, 2001 -- On Thursday, October 25, The New York Public Library will present Bryan Pu-Folkes, the Founder and President of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), with the Brooke Russell Astor Award. The $10,000 annual award, established in 1987 by a generous gift to the Library from David Rockefeller, recognizes unsung heroes who have substantially contributed to improving the quality of life in New York City. The award will be presented at a cocktail reception in the Trustees Room of The New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

Honorable Mentions will be awarded to Suzannah Chandler, Founder and Executive Director of Search and Care, and Sister Simone Ponnet, Executive Director of Abraham House.

Bryan Pu-Folkes
When Bryan Pu-Folkes, an active member of community organizations since college, found out about an anti-immigrant billboard erected, he decided to act. With the assistance of local businesses and members of the Queens community, Pu-Folkes collected enough funds for a subway poster campaign on the 7 line that responded to the billboard. Subsequently Pu-Folkes and the other volunteers created New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE). Under Pu-Folkes’s leadership, NICE has expanded and is now recognized as a leading immigrant advocacy organization in New York City. He is especially pleased to see the diverse Queens community overcoming their own conflicts to better their resources. "There has been a lot of hostility between long-term residents and new immigrants" he explains. NICE recently sought to improve the heavily utilized but dilapidated Flushing Meadows/Corona Park, one of the largest parks in New York City, and helped to smooth relationships between the community factions there.

Mr. Pu-Folkes, who is of Burmese and Jamaican descent, credits his parents, both immigrants themselves, with teaching him the importance of tolerance and equity, and of opposing racism. In addition to his work with NICE, Mr. Pu-Folkes is Director of the Private Bar Involvement Programs for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest which, in keeping with his interests, enables community-based organizations serving low-income and communities of color to receive pro bono legal assistance from top New York City law firms.

Suzannah Chandler is the Founder and Executive Director of Search and Care, a privately funded, not-for-profit community based agency. Since 1972, the organization has provided care management and preventive protective services to chronically ill and mentally impaired older residents of Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Sister Simone Ponnet is the Executive Director of Abraham House, a program that provides an alternative to incarceration for first-time, non-violent, male offenders. While residing Under Sister Simone’s guidance, the program aims to ensure that they are sufficiently prepared to return to society as productive members of the community.

The Brooke Russell Astor Award

The Brooke Russell Astor Award was established in 1987 as part of a generous endowment gift to The New York Public Library from David Rockefeller. Mr. Rockefeller's gift is a tribute to Mrs. Astor's continued commitment to supporting the role of individuals who improve the quality of life in New York City. Given annually, the Brooke Russell Astor Award honors an unsung hero or heroine, someone whose unrelenting efforts and tireless dedication to this city have contributed substantially to its betterment. Nominations for the 2001 Brooke Russell Astor Award were solicited from over 400 individuals and organizations, including cultural groups, universities, foundations, elected officials, community groups, and social service agencies. The selection committee included representatives from the cultural, academic, government, and social service communities of New York.

Previous Astor Award Recipients:

2000 -- Yolanda Sanchez, Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Association for Community Affairs, is a life-long community advocate and activist whose work on behalf of Puerto Rican and Latino children and women spans more than four decades and has resulted in major policy implications in child welfare, housing, and health services at local, state, and federal levels.

1999 - Yvonne Stennett, Executive Director of the Community League of West 159th Street, who has devoted extraordinary energy and commitment to improving living conditions for the people in the Southern Washington Heights area

1998 - James Gilmore, a New York City police detective in Washington Heights and co-founder of One Hundred Blacks in Law Enforcement, a fraternal organization dedicated to working for social justice.

1997 - Cordell Cleare, Co-Chair of the New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning, has conducted workshops on lead poisoning prevention at day care centers, head starts, public schools, and for the Montefiore Medical Center's Lead Poisoning Prevention Project.

1996 - Kathy Goldman, Founder and Executive Director of the Community Food Resource Center, has been working on city, state, and federal levels to address food, hunger, nutrition, and low-income issues in New York City.

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