NEW YORK CITY, December 12, 2006 — Robin Hood, one of the city's leading poverty-fighting organizations, today held the 17th annual Heroes Award Breakfast honoring four New Yorkers for their dedication and commitment to improving the community and transforming the lives of under-privileged New Yorkers. The event was held at the Mandarin Oriental New York.

Recipients of this year’s Heroes awards represent three organizations — Achievement First, Part of the Solution (POTS) and Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture. Robin Hood presented each organization with a grant for $50,000.

Richard Fuld, Jr., Atiim Barber and Doug Morris presented the 2006 awards.

"The heroes and the organizations they lead help people build better lives for themselves and as a result, New York is a healthier, more compassionate city," said Glenn Dubin, chair of Robin Hood’s board of directors and host of the Heroes Award Breakfast.

The 2006 Robin Hood Heroes:

Dacia Toll, President, and Doug McCurry, Superintendent, Achievement First
Dacia Toll was studying law at Yale in 1998 when she learned that only 22 percent of students in predominantly minority New Haven Public Schools performed on grade level. It was then that she began to see education as a civil rights issue. Toll, along with colleagues, led the founding team of Amistad Academy, the first Achievement First charter school in New Haven, and served as the school's director from 1999 until July 2005.

Doug McCurry joined Amistad as a founding teacher and thereafter served as the school’s instructional leader for three years. McCurry led the development of the school’s standards-based curriculum, including the interim assessment and data analysis system.

In its first year, the school received 500 applications for 85 seats. Under Toll and McCurry’s leadership, Amistad Academy consistently produced student performance results that tripled the New Haven Public Schools' average and rivaled Greenwich and Westport averages. As President and Superintendent of Achievement First, both Toll and McCurry have been instrumental in expanding and overseeing the growth of the Achievement First network in Brooklyn where there are now four college-preparatory public charter schools based on the Amistad model serving over 1,600 students.

Sister Mary Alice, Executive Director, Part of the Solution (POTS)
Sister Mary Alice, Executive Director of POTS, believes that when it comes to feeding the hungry, it’s not what you feed them but how you feed them that counts. Serving food alone is not enough; Sister Mary Alice’s mission is to feed all the hungers of the homeless. By day she is the guiding force and backbone of POTS; by night she runs Desda’s Grate, a shelter for poor women and children.

Sister Mary Alice entered the nunnery fresh out of high school and became a grammar school teacher. In 1985, she met a homeless woman, Desda, who changed her life and became her guide to understanding the issues and needs of the homeless. Sister Mary Alice became the director of various organizations serving the homeless and came to POTS in 1996.

Under her leadership, POTS was transformed from a soup kitchen serving food directly from cans, to a community kitchen serving hot, freshly prepared meals and a place for clients to shower, get their hair cut, receive mail, and benefit from legal, medical and mental-health services. Thanks to Sister Mary Alice’s vision, families now celebrate birthdays and special occasions at POTS. Her staff refers to her as an angel and a second mother, and credits her with balancing the organization. Clients talk about how her door is always open, and how her tough but unconditional love has helped lift them out of poverty.

Dr. Hawthorne Smith, Director of Psychology, Co-Director of Clinical Services, Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture
When people say someone is "so poor they have nothing but the shirt on their backs," it’s usually just an expression. But, for the people who come to Bellevue/NYU’s Program for Survivors of Torture, it’s the truth. The program provides safe and supportive therapy for refugees from more than 50 countries who arrive in New York City, most with only the clothes they are wearing and memories of horrific atrocities. Among the growing population of immigrants in New York City, at least 100,000 are survivors of torture. Dr. Hawthorne Smith, Co-Director of Clinical Services and Psychology Director, has developed a "psychology of human rights" that inspires resilience in his clients.

The Kayumba/Ngamala family is an example of courage in action, aided by the services of the program. With an extended family that crossed the ethnic lines of Hutu and Tutsi peoples, they were tortured, separated from one another and forced to flee their homeland. With the help of the program, the now-thriving family has been reunited.

Dr. Smith’s work is also viewed through the remarkable progress of Boubacar Traore, a student activist from Guinea who was tortured so brutally in prison that his leg was amputated. Despite arriving in the States without friends or family, after receiving services from the program, Traore is now preparing for the LSAT to become a lawyer. He just completed his fifth New York City marathon.