32 OCTOBER 6 - OCTOBER 12, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP
VICTORIA’S
SECRETS
Victoria
SCHNEPS-
YUNIS
vschneps@gmail.com
tweet me @vschneps
It was the week ending in the day of
atonement of my sins at the powerful
Yom Kippur services and it was
also a week during which I celebrated
at the One Brooklyn gala in Brooklyn,
and then on Thursday the celebration
in Patchogue of our new Long Island
Press Suffolk edition. In addition, I
was also privileged to spend time
with an extraordinary woman who
is saving from certain death the wild
horses who roam our western states.
The brilliant, caring Borough President
of Brooklyn Eric Adams brought
tears to my eyes as he spoke before a
few hundred people of his desperately
poor upbringing, being one of six siblings
with a loving single mom.
They were so poor he had to put
cardboard in his shoes when the
soles wore out. Food was so
scarce that neighbors
brought them food,
sometimes half full cereal
boxes or half a bag
of flour, and slipped envelopes
of dollars under
his door to help.
He never forgot the
acts of kindness. Now
he's in the position to
Wondrous Week
help others in need and
the 501c3 organization he
created gives him funds to
do it.
It was a joyous night of
meeting new friends, too. I
was so impressed with the
pleas of Pastor Gil Monrose
who has a congregation in
Brooklyn and also works
with the BP. He shared with
me the desperate needs of
the people in the Caribbean
who were hit by two deadly
hurricanes. The islands that
depend mostly on tourism
and agricultural products were
decimated.
He organized a hurricane relief
collection drive to bring to
those in need basic items from
mosquito spray to batteries to
flashlights to personal hygiene
products, and he has containers
Marion Russo from the Patchogue Village
Mayor’s Office at our Long Island Press
launch party at the Patchogue Playhouse.
to bring the items to the Virgin
Islands. They will be distributed
through the Virgin Islands’
clergy who have taken on the
mission to restore, rebound
and rebuild the islands.
We are collecting items
at our offices in Brooklyn
at 9733 Fourth Avenue
and in Queens at 38-15 Bell
Boulevard. Give what you
can! This will be a long and
painful recovery for the
people who made many
of our lives better when
we visited their precious, beautiful
Islands.
Another person saving lives is the
stunning, elegant Manda Kalimian.
She has devoted the last decade to
saving wild horses whose grazing
land is coveted by land grabbers.
There is legislation being proposed
before Congress to corral these wild
horses and kill them to free up their
grazing land for cattle herds and
fracking and drilling.
Manda has begun a campaign to
alert the public of the atrocity and has
personally gone to our western states
to "rewild " (save the horses) and
find homes for them.
Last week, Congressmember
Tom Suozzi held a press conference
to raise the issue and
offer his support to defeat
the legislation.
Manda has created the
Cana Foundation to raise
awareness and funds to
save the horses. To raise
funds, she has created a
for-profit business, “Naturally
Considerate.” It was
"inspired by the powerful
relationship between Mother
Earth and her inhabitants.” She
explains that her products offer
“old world medicinal practices with
nature’s purest healing
ingredients."
Manda is reaching back to
her heritage. Her mom was
the first to bring all-natural
organic cosmetics to the marketplace
in the 1960s. Now, “Naturally Considerate”
is striving to cultivate “an
awareness of the here and now and
our connection to earth and ourselves."
"It's rewilding the mind, body, heart
and spirit."
Fortunately for me, her stables are
only minutes away from my home so
on Sunday I brought my six-year-old
granddaughter Addy to visit Manda
and her horse “farm.” Addy fell in
love!
More to come on the rewilding of
horses and my body and mind!
Rev. Gilford
Monrose
Manda Kalimian at her horse “farm” with my granddaughter
Addy
Colandrea New Corner family has been in business in Dyker
Heights for over 81 years and was honored by Brooklyn
Borough President Eric Adams at his “One Brooklyn” event.