City To Honor Neighborhood 'Heroes'

(Daily News) July 16, 2006 -- Mayor Bloomberg will honor more than a dozen "unsung heroes" tonight at Gracie Mansion for fostering economic activity and jobs in their communities.

Included in the organizations, businesses and individuals being feted are a Brooklyn chocolate factory, a Manhattan food kiosk, a Staten Island film festival, a South Bronx housing organizer and a Queens technology firm.

They are among the recipients of the NYC Neighborhood Achievement Awards, presented each year by the city's Department of Small Business Services.

Begun in 2002 by Robert Walsh when he became the department's commissioner, the awards spotlight accomplishments by "the many unsung heroes" in civic organizations and small businesses who are helping to make life better in their communities.

Here are the various awards and recipients:

• Development Award: To the Fifth Avenue Committee for Community Development of South Brooklyn, which used environmentally safe materials in building a 27,000-square-foot multipurpose center to house all its programs.
• Placemaking Award: To the Staten Island Film Festival, Jacques Torres' chocolate factory in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn and the Shake Shack food kiosk in Madison Square Park.
• Partnership Award: To the Chelsea Cultural Partnership for a program to attract shoppers and visitors to Chelsea, and the Doe Fund for its Ready, Willing Able program to help homeless men and women become drug free and get jobs and housing.
• Workforce Innovation Award: For an employment training program conducted jointly by the Church Avenue Merchants Block Association in Flatbush, Brooklyn, the Whole Foods supermarket, and to Non Traditional Employment for Women, based in Manhattan, for its new night program to train disadvantaged women for jobs in construction and utilities.
• Small Business of the Year Award: To Abu's Bakery in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn and LeNell's Wine & Spirit Boutique in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
• Minority/Women-Owned Business Enterprise Award: Netfast Communications, an information technology firm, in Long Island City, Queens,headed by Joe Asady, and to Per Scholas Inc., a job training program based in Hunts Point, which provides refurbished computers to minority and women owned businesses.
• Leadership Award: To Dr. Lee Stuart for his housing activism work with the South Bronx Churches Nehemiah Program.
• Special Achievement Award: To Eugene McGrath, former chairman and CEO of Con Edison, for his corporate work and community service.