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Heroes of the Month
APRIL 2017
ALINA ESTRELLA, PARKS
ADVOCATE
Estrella, a James Madison High
School student who plays on the girls’
varsity basketball team and practices
at Rainbow Playground in Sunset Park,
started a community restoration project
with the hope that it would make a
difference to all the other children who
use the playground. Estrella raised donations
through a GoFundMe page, and
she was able to rally together current
and former community residents to
help her fix up the park on Saturday,
April 29th.
MAY 2017
ANNE LEVIN, ANIMAL ACTIVIST
Levin, president of the Brooklyn
Bridge Animal Welfare Coalition,
learned about a kitten stranded on the
side of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
(BQE) on Monday, March 27th. She
and her friend headed to the scene,
where she slowly approached the kitten
and grabbed her quickly so she couldn’t
run off and injure herself. They brought
the kitten to Park Slope Veterinary Center
where it had to have its tail amputated.
She raised money for the kitten’s
surgery costs online and took it under
her care to ensure she was all right to
be adopted by a foster family.
JUNE 2017
MARK KINDSCHUH, COLLEGE
STUDENT
On Sunday, June 4th, Kindschuh
was inside the Wheatsheaf Pub in London’s
Borough Market when terrorists
stormed into the bar and went on a
stabbing spree. Instead of running out of
the bar for safety, he stayed and saved
a man at the front of the bar bleeding
profusely from the back of his head
by wrapping his belt around the man’s
head to slow the bleeding.
JULY 2017
NUMAEL AMADOR, NYPD OFFICER
After a Tuesday, June 20th community
vigil for 38-year-old Domingo
Diego-Tapia, a Mexican immigrant from
Bedford-Stuyvesant left in a coma after
being sucker-punched off his bicycle,
Officer Amador, a member of the New
York City Police Department (NYPD)’s
Strategic Response Group who used to
work at the 81st Precinct, recognized
the footage of the perpetrator from
working in the precinct. He noticed the
man as he was working out at a gym in
the borough and reported the man to
the NYPD, who promptly arrested him.
AUGUST 2017
ERIC GIBSON, DC 37 MEMBER
Gibson, a New York City Parks Department
(NYC Parks) climber and
pruner, traveled to Puerto Rico on a 12-
day mission to assist with cutting and
pruning trees to protect civilians from
damaged and loose branches following
Hurricane Maria.
HECTOR GONZALEZ, NON-PROFIT
DIRECTOR
Gonzalez, executive director of Park
Slope-based non-profit Just 3 Arts,
spent 27 days in Puerto Rico on three
different trips to deliver clothing, food,
medical supplies, and toiletries to shelters
and other locations on the island
following Hurricane Maria.
SEPTEMBER 2017
SOPHIA CHANG, HIP-HOP
MANAGER
Chang coordinated a boroughwide
donation drive alongside famed rap artist
Joey Bada$$, a native of East Flatbush,
by collecting more than 160 boxes
of essentials including clothing, food,
household items, hygiene products, and
water for hurricane victims in Florida,
Puerto Rico, and Texas.
MARIE YVETTE ABREU, JASON
BATUS, MARIA BELKADI, AND
BROOKE MILLER, PUBLIC SCHOOL
TEACHERS
Belkadi of PS 212 Lady Deborah
Moody in Gravesend, Abreu of PS 216
Arturo Toscanini in Gravesend, Jason
Batus of IS 239 Mark Twain in Coney Island,
and Brooke Miller of PS 238 Anne
Sullivan in Midwood mobilized their students
to collect and send off supplies to
communities impacted by Hurricanes
Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
OCTOBER 2017
JOHN HASIOTIS, KEVIN MCGINN,
RYAN NASH, AND MICHAEL
WELSOME, NYPD OFFICERS
Officers Hasiotis, McGinn, Nash, and
Welsome apprehended and secured
the area around a man who rented a
pickup truck and barreled down the
West Side Highway bike path, crashing
into a school bus carrying children
Borough President Adams stood alongside a special group of “Heroes of the
Month” who volunteered their time to help the hurricane relief efforts in Florida,
Texas, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean.
with special needs, some of whom were
from Brooklyn. The Halloween ambush
resulted in the death of eight individuals,
making it the deadliest terror attack in
New York City since 9/11.
NOVEMBER 2017
PHILIP FACENDA AND THOMAS
PISANO, NYPD DETECTIVES
NYPD Detectives Facenda and Pisano
of the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad
worked tirelessly to solve the murder
case of Chynna Battle and Shaqwanda
Staley — both shot and killed by two
men as they were enjoying a summer
evening in Bedford-Stuyvesant. They
traveled outside the city to build their
leads and eventually solved the case on
Thursday, November 16th, when they
arrested two men of interest in South
Carolina.
DECEMBER 2017
MIKE AND NICK FIORITO,
BLANKETS OF HOPE
The Bay Ridge-native Fiorito brothers
started Blankets of Hope, which
raises money for blankets with handwritten
inspirational notes that they
hand out twice a week to the less fortunate.
Calling themselves “two bros from
Brooklyn,” the social entrepreneurs
raised more than $14,000 on social media
in 2017 to fund the purchase of more
than 1,000 blankets.
JANUARY 2018
MIKE NIEVES, HITN TV PRESIDENT
AND CEO
Nieves, a son of Puerto Rican immigrants
from Bushwick, organized a
comprehensive relief effort through his
Brooklyn Navy Yard-based television
station in the wake of Hurricane Maria,
including thousands of dollars in donations
Photo Credit: Erica Sherman/Brooklyn BP’s Office
and the coordination of deliveries
to communities in need.
FEBRUARY 2018
PETER WANG, HIGH SCHOOL
STUDENT
On Valentine’s Day, a gunman killed
14 students and three staff members at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
in Parkland, Florida. One of those victims
was Wang, a Brooklyn native and
freshman at the school who had moved
from Brooklyn to Parkland a year and
a half ago with his Chinese immigrant
parents so that he could join the Junior
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC)
program at the school. When the shooting
was taking place, Peter was proudly
wearing his cadet uniform while bravely
holding the door open so that his classmates
could escape the shooter.
MARCH 2018
TAMARA JENKINS, NYPD SCHOOL
SAFETY OFFICER
Jenkins, a Bedford-Stuyvesant resident,
successfully used the Heimlich
maneuver to save a choking fourthgrade
student at PS 241 STEM Institute
of Manhattan in Harlem on Wednesday,
March 28th.
APRIL 2018
JAMIL LUIS CRUZ, MS ADVOCATE
Cruz, a Brooklyn College student
and Eagle Scout from Bensonhurst,
was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis
(MS) when he was just 18 years old,
discovering he had the disease only five
months after joining the United States
Navy. Since then, he has worked to raise
awareness and funds for research to
combat the disease, including organizing
a fundraising walk in Hell’s Kitchen
on Sunday, April 15th.