YOUNG HEART – AISATOU TOURE – When she met R& B star Mary J. Blige, they had a heart-to-heart talk about the importance of self-esteem and confidence — two qualities Harlem teen Toure seeks to encourage in the younger students she mentors.Aisatou, 16, a junior at the School of the Future HS, regularly returns to her middle school where, among other things, she organizes other alumni to mentor students. Aisatou met Blige when the teen took part in a workshop offered by the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now, which the singer co-founded.
Imogen Brown
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YOUNG HEART – PATRICK MURPHY JR. – Putnam County 8th grader Patrick Murphy Jr. didn’t hesitate when his pal choked on a grape in the school cafeteria last month.Patrick, 13, who learned the Heimlich manuever as a Boy Scout “when I was 8 or 9” knew what to do during lunch at George Fischer Middle School in Carmel when Allen Kessman, 13, ate a grape that went down the wrong way. “He started waving his hands at me and was gasping for air,” said Patrick, who ran behind him and wrapped both arms around him. “I put my hands in a fist and hit him three times and the grape got dislodged.
Robert Kalfus
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YOUNG HEART – RACHEL GUZY – For a girl who doesn’t even have a learner’s permit, Queens camp counselor Rachel Guzy seems to know what she’s doing behind the wheel. The 16-year-old leaped into action to save nine kids in August after the driver of their school bus slumped over with a fatal heart attack.Rachel jumped behind the wheel and stepped down hard on the brake — and insists she only did what needed to be done. “To me, they were my kids. They were my responsibility,” said Rachel, a high-school junior.
James Messerschmidt
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LEADERSHIP – RUTH LANDE SHUMAN – Vibrant colors can have a positive effect on attitude and behavior, says Shuman. And in 1994, she founded Publicolor, a nonprofit that empowers at-risk students to paint their drab and dreary public schools into attractive, stimulating spaces of learning.The organization has so far painted 117 public schools and 135 community facilities across the city. Publicolor has a palette of educational programs which include one-on-one tutoring, college-prep courses and literacy-immersion classes, among others.
Christian Johnston
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LEADERSHIP – JAMAL JOSEPH – From jailed Black Panther member to Columbia University professor, Joseph has had a journey that helps him inspire Harlem youth.The 56-year-old, who earned two degrees and wrote his first play behind bars, founded Harlem’s IMPACT Repertory Theatre, which stresses youth empowerment and leadership through the arts, and has helped scores of students graduate from college.He was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Song category last year for his contributions to the song “Raise It Up,” performed by IMPACT in the 2007 film August Rush.
Matthew McDermott
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LEADERSHIP – REV. MELONY SAMUELS – She was earning a “substantial income” selling life insurance when Samuels met an ailing woman struggling to feed her four kids. She couldn’t ignore the situation, so she helped the woman — and found other people in need. In 1998, she quit her job, became a pastor, and launched a food pantry called BedStuy Campaign Against Hunger.The supermarket-style pantry feeds over 10,000 individuals every month — and more every day in this economy. “I like to know I’ve helped people,” she said. “I like to give.”
Christian Johnston
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NEW YORK’S FINEST – MICHAEL DELANEY, JAMES COLL, JOHN McKENNA and ROBERT RODRIGUEZ – When Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger crash-landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January, these four NYPD detectives dived into action and plucked passengers from the icy waters.Two jumped from a rescue chopper after spotting a woman in the water, hanging onto a ferryboat’s rescue ladder. The four — of the NYPD’s Scuba Unit and Emergency Service Unit — also boarded the semi-submerged wreck to make sure no one was trapped inside. In this picture the four accepting the Police Foundation Award.
NYPD Photo Division
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NEW YORK’S FINEST – KIM ROYSTER – A cabaret crooner by night, by day Royster’s a top NYPD crimefighter who has won kudos for directing the department’s gun-buyback amnesty program, which took 4,538 weapons off the streets in 10 months.Royster, a deputy inspector, leads a team in the NYPD’s Office of Management Analysis and Planning, where she develops policy for the department. It is there she was tapped to lead the joint NYPD/District Attorney’s Office gun buyback from July ’08 to April ’09. “To save a life is priceless,” she says.
Imogen Brown
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NEW YORK’S FINEST – SUSAN PORCELLO – An ailing 84-year-old Brooklyn veteran was all alone in the world — until he met tender-hearted cop Porcello, who watched over the former Marine during the final months of his life.When the officer and her partner, of the 68th precinct, responded to a 911 call at Gasper Musso’s apartment in July 2008, he told her, “Look around you, kid. I’m all alone. I have nobody.” She replied, “I’ll be your friend.” She visited him at the hospital, became his health proxy and when he died, paid for his funeral out of her own pocket.
Imogen Brown
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NEW YORK’S BRAVEST – MICHAEL CZECH – The flames in an apartment below had turned a Queens bedroom into a “barbecue pit” on Jan. 27. Firefighter Michael Czech, 29, of Ladder 142 knew he had only seconds to rescue three unconscious people — a mother and her two young sons.He crawled through a shattered window of the Ozone Park apartment and into the brutal heat. One by one, he picked up the victims — who had passed out from the smoke and carbon-monoxide poisoning — and took them near the window, passing each to another firefighter who lowered them to paramedics.
Christopher Sadowski
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NEW YORK’S BRAVEST – MOSES NELSON – A 7-year-old Bronx boy who had fallen into an elevator shaft was dangling by his trapped foot when FDNY paramedic Moses Nelson, of Station 26, arrived. The child, his foot caught between the elevator and the shaft, was suspended between the second and third floors in his building.Nelson, 27 — his partner and a firefighter holding him by his belt — reached up to the boy from the floor below to stop him from plunging and held him up by his shoulders until an airbag was deployed to push the cab away from the wall and free the boy.
Robert Kalfus
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NEW YORK’S BRAVEST – GIOVANNI MARTINEZ – Blinded by the black smoke billowing from a third-floor window of a Bushwick apartment house on March 24, Brooklyn firefighter Giovanni Martinez, of Ladder 124, guided his rescue bucket toward the screams of a panicked pregnant woman and her husband, who were trapped by a locked safety gate and a bed against the window.He pried off the window frame and dragged the couple into the ladder bucket as flames engulfed the bedroom. Martinez, 35, then crawled through the window and rescued a dazed man with burns.
William Miller
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EDUCATOR – SUSAN VINCENT – With the minnow traps and waders she keeps in her Manhattan classroom, high school science teacher Vincent takes her students on summer canoe trips to Piermont Marsh on the Hudson River to research the ecosystem.She says she wants the girls of the Young Women’s Leadership School in East Harlem to be knowledgeable about the world they live in. “You can’t be a good citizen unless you know how the Earth operates and how we enhance our own quality of life by preserving other habitats,” says Vincent.
Christian Johnston
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EDUCATOR – ISRAEL SOTO – “When you help kids believe in themselves and provide them with a structured program that meets their needs, they’re going to grow,” says principal Soto, who turned a failing East Harlem school into one that scores an A.When he came to PS/MS 57 a decade ago, only 13 percent scored at or above acceptable levels in reading and math. “Today we’re at 91 percent in math and 75 percent in reading,” Soto said. He tells students to “Have a dream. Work hard. Graduate from college. Come back to the community and help others and be honest.”
Victoria Will/NEW YORK POST
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EDUCATOR – GIOVANNI D’AMATO – In his third year teaching US history and government at Williamsburg HS for Architecture and Design, D’Amato, 24, knows his students. He compiles a profile of each one, lists their abilities and develops a plan of how he’ll work them.He inspires many, said former student Ariel Alvarado, 18. “They lost faith in themselves, and he made sure they came to school, and worked with them, instead of letting them give up,” said Ariel. D’Amato has “shown amazing success in student achievement” in class and on the Regents exams, said principal Gill Cornell.
Paul Martinka
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COURAGE – SALVATORE GIALLOMBARDO – He suffers from emphysema, but when he saw smoke billowing from a burning house and learned that a 14-year-old boy was still upstairs, the Long Island grandfather jumped to help.Giallombardo, 55, ran over to the Rockville Centre house and banged on the door. He urged the woman and two girls who opened it to flee — and when one of the girls said her brother was upstairs, he ran to find him.He kept looking despite the smoke that made breathing hard for him, found the teen, grabbed his arm and took him to safety.
Victor Alcorn
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COURAGE – ADAM RIVERA – On an uptown platform at the Union Square subway station with his girlfriend Aug. 21, off-duty firefighter Rivera spotted someone lying on the downtown tracks. Just as an uptown train began entering the station, he jumped onto the tracks in front of it, hopped over the third rail and squeezed between some pillars to get to the other track and the injured man. He grabbed the man from behind and dragged him out of harm’s way.
Zandy Mangold
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COURAGE – JENNIFER MAZZOTTA-PERRETTI – This Long Island teacher practices what she teaches about doing good deeds — and donated one of her kidneys to a student.Last month, the single mom — who asked her 2007 summer school class to write about what “they could do for somebody else” — gave Kevin O’Brien, 19, a kidney at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. “I’m a parent, and I saw this child suffering. And I’m a teacher, and I believe you don’t just teach kids textbook lessons. You have to be an example outside the classroom,” said Mazzotta-Peretti, 33.
Victor Alcorn
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LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT – CHERI MELILLO – Dedicated to feeding the hungry, Manhattanite Melillo founded a can-do contest that has resulted in donations of millions of cans of food across North America over the past 16 years. Called Canstruction, the annual design-and-build competition invites teams of architects and engineers to create intricate, large-scale sculptures made entirely from full cans of food. The structures go on public display, after which the cans are donated to food banks. Contests are held in 133 cities in North America and Australia.
Michael Sofronski
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LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT – MONSIGNOR WILLIAM O’BRIEN – In 1957, a distraught mother with a troubled son turned to a young priest at St. Patrick’s Cathedral — and it was then that the Rev. O’Brien realized he had found his calling: to help kids caught in the throes of substance abuse by finding an effective drug program to keep them clean. In 1963, the Rev. — now Monsignor — O’Brien, now 85, and his partners founded Daytop Lodge, which emphasized group therapy and taking responsibility. It became Daytop Village and spawned programs nationwide, helping over 100,000 drug abusers turn their lives around.
Dan Brinzac
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LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT – KAREN WASHINGTON – Community activist Washington rallied Bronx residents in her hardscrabble neighborhood to till cracked concrete into rows of vegetables, herbs and vibrant seasonal flowers two decades ago.As more little Edens sprouted from neighborhood eyesores, Washington, a physical therapist, started LaFamilia Verde in 1998, a coalition of community gardens in the Crotona, East Tremont and West Farms neighborhoods. Washington, 55, has put in 21,800 hours as a volunteer working on social, economic and environmental issues.
Christian Johnston
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FREEDOM – WELLINGTON CHEN – In his native Taiwan, Chen was given a Chinese first name that means “boat maker” — and now he’s helping to chart a new course for Chinatown.The community advocate, 56, who came here as a teen, worked to help revitalize downtown Flushing. Since 2006, he’s been executive director of the nonprofit Chinatown Partnership. He says Chinatown was “severely impacted by 9/11” and his group, working to help it thrive, has, among other things, helped clear the streets of 15 million pounds of garbage and power-washed over 8,000 storefronts.
Imogen Brown
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FREEDOM – ANTHONY DeSANTIS – He came here as a boy from his native Sicily. He served as a Green Beret, and rose in the city Sanitation Department to become deputy director of waste disposal. Along the way, he developed a reputation as a tough guy with a big heart who has spent 40 years devoted to a charity for special-needs kids.DeSantis, 66, who retired in 2001, sits on the board of the all-volunteer Community Mayors, an organization that takes thousands of handicapped kids on outings and holds an annual Operation Santa Claus. “My heart feels happy” when the kids smile, he says.
Chad Rachman/The New York Post
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FREEDOM – LICET VALOIS – A track-and-field champ in her native Colombia, Valois now goes the extra mile in the Big Apple, reaching out to Spanish-speaking immigrants about Alzheimer’s disease.Valois, Latino outreach manager for the New York City chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, spreads the word even on her days off — offering information about memory problems and other symptoms of dementia.Working with the elderly “has always been my passion,” says Valois, 34, whose duties include running support groups for caregivers.
Zandy Mangold
