Awards, Oct 07, 1999

The following awards have been presented for work in philanthropy, fund raising, volunteerism, and non-profit management:

Arts and humanities. President Clinton has announced 11 recipients of the 1999 National Medal of Arts, including Irene Diamond, an arts patron and philanthropist and former president of the Aaron Diamond Foundation (New York); the Juilliard School (New York), a performing-arts school whose alumni include Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, and Robin Williams; Norman Lear, the producer, writer, and director who helped create People For the American Way (Washington); and Harvey Lichtenstein, who retired in July after directing the Brooklyn Academy of Music (N.Y.) for 32 years.

The 1999 National Humanities Medal went to eight individuals, including Patricia M. Battin, a librarian and former president of the Commission on Preservation and Access who led a national campaign to save disintegrating books.

Humanitarianism. The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation (Reno) has presented its 1999 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize to the African Medical and Research Foundation (Nairobi, Kenya), which develops community-based health-care services for Africans, with an emphasis on preventing and treating AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. Each year the prize provides $1,000,000 to a non-profit group that has contributed significantly to easing human suffering.

Volunteerism. Do Something (New York) has presented its 1999 BRICK Awards for Community Leadership, which honor people under the age of 30 who are building their communities “brick by brick,” to 10 individuals. Nine of the recipients will receive $10,000; one recipient, to be named at a special event later this year, will receive $100,000. The winners:

— Lucas Benitez, 23, co-director of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (Immokalee, Fla.), which helps migrant farm workers organize for wage increases, safer conditions, and other labor rights.

— Oona Chatterjee, 27, co-founder of Make the Road by Walking (Brooklyn, N.Y.), which organizes local residents to operate expanded welfare and legal services, a food pantry, and other community-development projects.

— Marqueece Harris-Dawson, 29, director of South Central Youth Empowered Thru Action (Los Angeles), which helps students from south-central Los Angeles’ eight high schools identify community problems and pursue solutions; through the group, students have photographed and documented poor school conditions and secured $153-million to fix lockers, improve student bathrooms, and otherwise upgrade school facilities.

— Terrol Johnson, 28, co-founder and co-director of Tohono O’odham Community Action (Sells, Ariz.), which promotes sustainable community development for the Tohono O’odham Nation in southern Arizona; projects include a charter high school and a basketweavers’ marketing cooperative.

— Valdimir Joseph, 26, founder and executive director of Inner Strength (Atlanta), which provides tutoring, mentors, and hiking experiences for disadvantaged young men in inner-city Atlanta.

— Brad Lander, 29, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee (Brooklyn, N.Y.), which organizes residents of this south Brooklyn neighborhood in community-development projects, including an “environmentally friendly” laundromat, 200 units of low-cost housing, and a temporary-employment agency.

— William Morales, 28, director of the Egleston Square Youth Center (Roxbury, Mass.), which promotes improved relations between local youths and police officers.

— Rebecca Onie, 21, founder and director of Project Health (Boston), which operates 15 local programs to insure child health and safety, including the Family Help Desk at the Boston City Hospital.

— Vincent Pan, 26, executive director and co-founder of Heads Up (Washington), which mobilizes parents and college students to provide after-school and summer tutoring and mentor activities for more than 400 low-income families and children in the District of Columbia.

— Daniel Ross, 26, executive director, Nuestras Raices (Holyoke, Mass.), an urban agricultural project for low-income Latino families that includes community gardens and a farmers’ market.