Mill Basin
It was a tasty treat for longtime diner Lorraine Santino as she celebrated her 60th birthday with hubby Jimmy Santino and Alice Lin, owner of Tasty Tavern (this is the Year of the Dragon, after all). The trio celebrated the auspicious occasion by hoisting a glass, toasting yum seng, and wishing happy fortune cookies for many more birthdays to come. Standing O sends tasty tidings to Lorraine — shengri kuaile!
Tasty Tavern [4523 Avenue N between E. 45th and E. 46th streets in Mill Basin, (718) 692–1020].
Park Slope
Breaking all the numbers
This April, New York Methodist Hospital celebrated the more than 1,000 volunteers that help make the hospital the greatest anywhere. These generous angels of mercy — or volunteers, if you will — logged more than 100,000 hours of their time just to help out patients and family members in need. More than 40,000 hours were spent directly in contact with patients. Mark Mundy, president and CEO of the hospital, told Standing O, “Being a volunteer here goes way above and beyond the call of duty,” and he ain’t kidding. Standing O suggests that if you got the time, Methodist has a spot to fill.
New York Methodist Hospital [506 Sixth St. between Seventh and Eighth avenues in Park Slope (718) 780–3000, www.nym.org/getinvolved].
Bay Ridge
Hip hip hooray!
Three cheers to the staff of the Bay Ridge Federal Credit Union. These caring, walking folks made a difference when they teamed up to raise $2,252 smackeroos to benefit HIV–AIDS research. It was just one small 6.2-mile walk for Jose Lizardi, Vanessa Spinelli, Nicole Spinelli, Jude Joseph, Josephine Geraci, Marianne Mcnulty, Jasmine Vargas, Tina Conte, Maria Rando, Wing Yung, Kam Tran, Dorita Jackson, and Chao Chen, but it was one giant leap for those suffering from the disease.
,The AIDSWalk, which was held on May 20, helps shine a light on HIV-AIDS. Walking the walk and talking the talk during the AIDSWalk NYC campaign helps ease the load and lighten the road for many.
Bay Ridge Federal Credit Union [9000 Fourth Ave. between 90th and 91st streets in Bay Ridge, (718) 680–2121].
Coney Island
What a guy!
Long ago, before Coney Island was the popular People’s Playground, a very young Harry Leibowitz lived in an old bungalow where 10 families shared a bathroom. But Harry worked tirelessly and became a very successful businessman. In 1996, while recovering from cancer surgery, Harry watched the naming of the winners of the Pulitzer Prize on television, and he made the realization that there was no Pulitzer for those that tirelessly served children in need.
Harry knew he had to do something, so he created the World of Children Award organization, a philanthropic group which is committed to improving the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children. To date, it has granted more than $4.8 million in grants and program support to 90 honorees that serve children in more than 100 countries.
Well, no good deed goes unnoticed, and this past May, Harry — along with cofounder and wife Kay Isaacson-Leibowitz — received the 2012 Ellis Island Medal of Honor at ceremonies held on that little piece of rock known as Ellis Island.
Standing O says, “You are never so tall as when you bend to help a child.”
To Harry Leibowitz, a rousing Standing O!