STANDING Brooklyn’s Biggest Booster
Brooklyn Hospital Center to honor nine Kings County women
BY ELISSA ESHER
Brooklyn Hospital Center
will continue its 175th
anniversary celebration
with a ceremony honoring
Kings County luminaries
at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
on Oct. 2., where hospital
executives will honor nine
women for outstanding contributions
to the borough,
including former Fox 5 news
anchor Sukanya Krishnan,
New York Public Library
COO and Treasurer Iris
Weinshall, and Schneps Media
On-Air Personality, Co-
Publisher, and President
Victoria Schneps.
The upcoming gala event
is the third in an ongoing
award series, called “Brooklyn
175,” which celebrates
the hospital’s 2020 anniversary
bash, as well as Kings
County’s best and brightest,
according to one hospital executive.
“The founding of Brooklyn
Hospital was deeply intertwined
with the founding
of Brooklyn as we know it today,
and the ideas and vision
of the hospital are still refl ective
of the city as a whole,”
said Debbie Niederhoffer,
Vice President of Development
at The Brooklyn Hospital
Center. “Because of that,
we decided the hospital’s anniversary
shouldn’t just celebrate
the hospital itself. It
should celebrate the people
who made Brooklyn this incredibly
unique borough.”
Founded as the borough’s
fi rst volunteer hospital
in 1845 — 24 years before
work began on the Brooklyn
Bridge — Brooklyn Hospital
Center evolved throughout
the decades to meet the
needs of the borough’s growing
and diversifying population,
caring for soldiers
in the Civil War and both
world wars, and offering
training through Brooklyn’s
Potential adopters fi ll out forms outside the Ashland, a luxury rental building in Fort Greene, on Sept. 21. Photos by Caroline Ourso
Fort Greene dwellers offer homes to good cats and dogs
fi rst nursing school in 1880.
Today, it services nearly
300,000 patient visits a year.
Brooklyn Hospital Center
is holding each awards ceremony
COURIER L 26 IFE, SEPT. 27-OCT. 3, 2019
at different locations
throughout the borough in
an effort to spotlight the local
businesses, owners, and entrepreneurs
that helped shape
Kings County. The Navy Yard
venue was chosen in recognition
of Deirdre Quinn, the
owner, CEO and Co-Founder
of fashion vendor Lafayette
148, who recently moved the
company’s main corporate
offi ces from Manhattan to
the Brooklyn manufacturing
complex, and joined The
Brooklyn Hospital Center’s
board of trustees.
Staying on theme with
the women’s clothing company,
the awards ceremony
will be preceeded by a fashion
show and shopping opportunity
with all proceeds
going directly to the hospital.
The chic venue is also
why Brooklyn Hospital Center
chose this ceremony to
honor their fi rst all-female
group of medalists.
“We want the shopping
and fashion show to present
the incredible tapestry of
texture and fabric Brooklyn
has brought to the fashion
industry,” said Niederhoffer.
“Brooklyn has always attracted
a diverse and entrepreneurial
melange of characters
in this fi eld.”
BY ROSE ADAMS
These furballs are homeward bound!
A pack of adorable Brooklyn tail waggers
found loving homes during a pet
adoption event last Saturday, when a local
animal shelter stationed an adoption
truck outside a Fort Greene apartment
building.
“It was really successful,” said Courtney
Weinholtz, a Greenpoint resident and
a volunteer at the Manhattan-based shelter,
Bideawee.
The adoption truck carried six dogs
and fi ve cats to Ashland Place between
Fulton Street and Lafayette Avenue,
where dozens of passersby boarded the
van to meet the four-legged fuzz muffi
ns between 11 am and 2 pm. According
to Weinholtz, it didn’t take long for deep
bonds to form — and for one dog, it was
puppy love at fi rst sight.
“A couple had been interested in him,
and he was obsessed with the woman
right when he met her,” Weinholtz said
about the nine-month-old pup. The little
dog grew visibly upset when the woman
turned away, only to be thrilled when the
couple returned to take him home, Weinholtz
said.
All but two of the furry friends found
forever homes during the event, and Weinholtz
said that animal lovers lined up to
meet the cute companions even before the
truck arrived.
Bideawee, a no-kill shelter with locations
in Manhattan and Suffolk County,
houses a diverse mix of cats and dogs,
some of whom the organization rescues
from kill shelters in the south and in
Puerto Rico. The pet organization holds
semi-weekly adoption events across the
city, which, according to Weinholtz, serve
not only to fi nd homes for the shelter aniamls,
but also to help change stereotypes
about rescues.
“It’s a really great way for Bideawee to
show people that rescue animals can be
really friendly,” she said.
BY JOE HITI
Three cheers for the American
Heart Association, which
held its annual Brooklyn heart
walk in Coney Island on Sunday
Sept. 15.
The event gave participants
a chance to walk the perimeter
of MCU Park following the
Brooklyn Cyclones’ Sept. 10 title
win to bring awareness the
nation’s biggest killer — heart
disease.
The American Heart association
hosts heart walks in over
100 US cities, and while the fi veyear
old Brooklyn walk is relatively
young, organizers are
looking to expand their operations
in the borough.
“We want to do more in
Brooklyn,” said Mia Littlejohn
who works for the non-profi t.
Heart disease and stroke
are the country’s fi rst and fi fth
killers respectively. Someone
suffers of a stroke every 40 seconds
in the United States, and
one out of every three deaths in
the US were due to cardiovascular
disease in 2016.
Participants were able to
walk the Coney ball fi eld for
free as part of the event, but organizers
encouraged the strollers
to kick in a few bucks for
the cause. This year, the Brooklyn
event brought in $21,000 in
fundraising and saw 345 participants
walk from all over the
borough.
Honoree Victoria Schneps
Brooklyn battles heart disease at MCU Park