June 2,
2005
(PDF) |
(DOC) |
(TIFF) | Get
Adobe Acrobat Reader
MINE
HILL MOTHER WHO FOUNDED ORGANIZATION TO AID HOMELESS EARNS
TOP RUSS BERRIE AWARD
Annual Ceremony
Honors New Jersey’s Unsung Heroes Who Give Back to Their Communities
MAHWAH, N.J.,
June 2, 2005 – Joann Tyler’s
heart is filled with love - for her three
birth children, seven adopted children and more than 20
foster children - and for those with no place to call
home.
When Tyler, a
resident of Mine Hill, saw six homeless people in a Dover
park on Thanksgiving Day 2003, she took them plates of
Thanksgiving food. A year later, she was feeding breakfast
and dinner to more than 50 people a day. Today, as co-founder
of Missionaries of God, she continues to provide food
and clothing and dreams of expanding the organization’s
services to open a shelter.
For her selfless
dedication, Tyler was given the top award, a cash grant
of $50,000, during today’s presentation
of the 2005 Russ Berrie Award for Making
a Difference at Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah.
In all, 19 finalists were distinguished with cash grants
during the Awards Ceremony. The top three finalists, chosen
by a selection committee comprising eminent New Jersey business
leaders and professionals, received cash awards of $50,000,
$35,000 and $25,000.
The $35,000 award was given to David Butler, MD of Norwood, who
has practiced obstetrics and gynecology at
Holy Name Hospital for the past 33 years. For the past
13 years, he has been making annual visits to Haiti’s Hôpital Sacré Coeur
to provide obstetrical and gynecologic surgery
services to poor and underserved women who travel as far
as 20 miles for care. Each day, Butler performs five to
eight surgeries and sees between 70 and 100 patients.
The $25,000 award was presented to Arthur Ackerman of
Port Norris. He and his wife adopted four babies who
now range in age from 22 to 35. Each has
Down’s
Syndrome. Though his wife and oldest daughter have died,
Ackerman remains devoted to his family. “What the
family lacks in money, and in many other things for that
matter, they make up for in love and happiness,” said
an admirer.
Late philanthropist
and businessman Russ Berrie created the award in 1997.
His widow, Angelica Berrie, shared his passion for giving
and now leads the Russell Berrie Foundation’s
efforts to realize his philanthropic vision. “Russ
wanted to create an award specifically for unsung heroes—people
who really make a difference by dedicating
their lives to improving life or helping others.”
Delivering the
keynote address was Emmy and AP award winning broadcast
journalist Lori Stokes, news anchor for WABC TV’s Eyewitness
News This Morning and Eyewitness News at Noon.
Sixteen finalists were presented awards of $2,500 each.
They include:
John Bertollo of Hawthorne is
a borough councilman who has committed his time to many
community organizations. While Rotary Club president,
he secured a $25,000 grant for a playground for children
with and without physical challenges. Along with his son
and brother, he put personal risk aside to rescue a neighbor
with Multiple Sclerosis whose house was engulfed in flames.
Attorney Gary Carbonello of Mendham donated
a kidney to a woman he never met, a 34-year-old mother
of three young children. Since that time, Carbonello has
served on the Board of Trustees of Transplant Speakers
International and on its Advisory Council. He speaks
to groups across the country urging them to become organ
donors.
Wayne Cesa of Hawthorne is the executive director
of Free Throws for AIDS, an organization that he founded
in 1998 to improve the quality of life of those whose lives
are affected by the virus and to raise awareness of AIDS
through education. Since the death of his cousin from complications
from AIDS in 1992, Cesa spends every spare moment, and much
of his own money, trying to help others, especially students
in the Paterson area, understand the devastating impact
of AIDS and how it can be prevented.
For the past 35 years Jerome Colwell of Bayonne has
been helping a variety of people in a variety
of circumstances while instilling self-esteem in those
he helps. In addition to his work with organizations including
Covenant House, American Red Cross, Project Ready, Harmony
House, Boy Scouts, Big Brother, he is also a member of
the Disaster Action Team and responds to fires and other
disasters in the Bergen-Hudson County area.
Kathleen DiChiara is founder and
leader of the Hillside-based Community
FoodBank of New Jersey, one of the largest
in the country. Inspired by a Sunday
sermon, she started collecting food for the
needy in the back of her station wagon. Today,
the organization has a staff of 97, more
than 30,000 volunteers, two warehouses and
a small fleet of trucks and distributes more
than 23 million pounds of food and groceries
to more than 1,500 charities serving over
500,000 people.
Claudio Gomez of West New York was
thrust into the role of lifesaver this past
February when a charter jet crashed into
the Strawberry clothing warehouse in Teterboro,
where Gomez is employed. Before firefighters
arrived, he defied the thick black smoke
and flames that engulfed the jet to pull
three survivors from the wreckage.
Janet Hansraj of Mahwah,
a registered nurse at Pascack Valley Hospital,
risked her life to extricate a badly burned
and bleeding 20-year-old man from a car
that hit a guardrail, flipped over several
times, slid down an embankment and landed
upside down in a ditch. Hansraj, garbed
in a sari, took charge until ambulances
arrived. It was Hansraj’s sari that
helped identify her weeks after the accident
when authorities sought the identity of
the calm, but anonymous rescuer.
Lillie Hendry of Freehold has
been the president of the Board of Trustees
of the Court Street School Education Community
Center for the past 10 years. Now a Historic
Community Center, it was one of the last
segregated schools in Monmouth County. Hendry
helped refurbish the school and turn it into
a community center that offers numerous programs
for the area’s young people.
George Khalid Jones of Prospect Park shares
his life experiences with young people to
stress the importance of education, respect
for teachers and staying way from gangs,
drugs and negative behavior. The current
reigning light heavyweight IBF North American
Boxing Federation Champion, Jones was formerly
homeless, a drug dealing addict and an ex-convict.
He learned to read and write in prison and
earned his high school diploma during his
incarceration. After prison, Jones earned
a commercial driving license and began a
career in boxing.
Stacey Kindt of Lakewood is the co-founder
and co-director of Redeem-Her, an ex-offender
directed, self-help, social services organization.
Successful female ex-offenders reach back
to their sisters still behind bars to prepare
them for spiritual reconciliation as well
as reconciliation with themselves, their
families and communities, and help them enter
the work world by providing skills training
and wardrobe assistance.
Sr. Rosemary A. McSorley, Esq. of Pompton
Plains is the founder and director
of Cornelian Community Counselors, a non-sectarian,
not-for-profit law firm that represents
battered women, their children, seniors,
immigrants seeking citizenship and low-income
families. A teacher for 25 years, McSorley
entered Seton Hall Law School in her sixties,
passed the bar and established the firm
in 1995. Donations and grants cover the
firm’s expenses as she works to ensure
her clients receive the appropriate services
and to help them become more productive
citizens.
Evelyn Personeus of River Vale is
a registered nurse at Bergen Regional Medical
Center. This past January, a car crashed
into trees, a telephone pole and a cement
structure outside her home. After she
called 911, she found the car’s passenger,
a 20-year-old man, unconscious and pinned
in the wreck, near death. She climbed into
the car through the window to hold his head
so he could breathe, or, if the worst happened,
be with him if his heart stopped beating. Police
officers used crowbar to free the passenger’s
legs and drag him out. The young man recovered
from his injuries.
Losing all four limbs 12 years ago did not
stop Michael V. Sciullo of Brigantine from
returning to his photography business in
Atlantic City. Months of intensive care and
additional physical and occupational therapy
allowed him to walk out of Bacharach Re-Hab
in Pomona, NJ, with four artificial limbs. He
so impressed his fellow patient members of
a support group for amputees at Bacharach
that the doctor there suggested Sciullo take
over the group. Sciullo continues as a volunteer
counselor and serves as chairman of the Atlantic
County Disabled Citizens Advisory Board.
Chairman of the Atlantic County Veterans
Advisory Board, he was influential in the
construction of a new Veterans Medical Center.
Lipica Jaclyn Shah of Clarksburg and
several Girl Scout friends dreamed of starting
a disaster supply center to assist families
in Millstone who lost their homes to fire
seven years ago. Although the troop disbanded,
Shah pursued their dream and created Project
HOPE (Helping Our People Everyday). With
township approval and involvement, she obtained
and restored a trailer, held drives to collect
needed items to fill it, and involved younger
scouts to teach them about community service.
When Shah, now 17, leaves for college, the
township’s Emergency Management Office
will run the fully stocked trailer. Shah
is on the National By Girls, for Girls Advisory
Committee, represents the Monmouth Council
of Girl Scouts to the Board of Directors,
is a member of the Girl Scouts Teen Speakers
Bureau and is Red Cross certified in life
guarding, small craft safety, CPR and First
Aid.
Lindsey Tippett of Hamilton learned
three years ago that she has Ewing’s
Sarcoma, a rare form of malignant bone tumor.
She has made it a lifelong mission to help
others suffering from cancer, raising over
$60,000 for the oncology department at Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia through bake sales,
sponsored walks and conducting community
blood drives, even while traveling to Philadelphia
for bi-weekly chemotherapy treatments. During
a year of treatment, Lindsey spent more than
100 days in the hospital, yet managed to
remain on her school’s honor roll by
being tutored at home. An inspiration
to her classmates, telecommunications students
made a documentary film in her honor.
Kathleen Toth of Wyckoff is
an advocate of family values and community
involvement. About
10 years ago, she organized a group of volunteers
to assist the teachers at the school of Sacred
Heart in Jersey City in an area with high
unemployment and many families living at
or below the poverty level. She helped create
the Angel Fund at her own parish in Wyckoff,
the Church of St. Elizabeth, which raises
over $100,000 each year to assist families
who otherwise would not be able to afford
to send their children to Sacred Heart. Since
the involvement of Toth and her volunteers,
over 400 students have graduated from Sacred
Heart and the school has a waiting list.
Russ
Berrie founded Russ Berrie and Company,
Inc. in 1963. While best known for
its teddy bears and other plush animals,
the Company's gift and juvenile lines comprise
a diverse range of everyday, seasonal,
and occasion-themed products that help
people celebrate the milestones in their
lives. Headquartered
in New Jersey, today the Company operates
offices, showrooms, and distribution
centers all over the world and trades on
the NYSE under the symbol RUS.
In addition to his business accomplishments,
Mr. Berrie devoted boundless energy and resources
to numerous charitable causes, earning recognition
in 1998 as one of the 40 most generous Americans
by Fortune Magazine.
Ramapo
College of New Jersey is the state’s
public liberal arts college, serving 5,600
undergraduate and graduate students from
more than 20 states and 60 nations. U.S.
News & World Report ranks Ramapo number
one among public comprehensive colleges in
the north. The College named its center for
performing and visual arts, the site of the
Russ Berrie Award for Making a Difference
ceremony, in honor of both Mr. Berrie and
his wife Angelica.
