18 The QUENS Courier • may 28, 2015 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com Corona’s Langston Hughes Library wins $20K BY ANGY ALTAMIRANO [email protected] @aaltamirano28 One Corona library has stood out from over 13,000 nominations throughout the city for its dedication to the local diverse community. The Langston Hughes Community Library, located at 100-01 Northern Blvd., was announced on May 21 as one of five winners in this year’s second annual NYC Neighborhood Library Awards. One neighborhood resident and community group member who nominated the Langston Hughes Library said it “unites people across ethnic and cultural lines” and allows residents to see just how much they have in common. It is the only Queens library to win this year and joins the Corona Library, which was one of the winners during the awards’ inaugural year. This year’s winners, which were selected from more than 13,000 nominations in the city’s three library systems, each received $20,000. They each also received a two-minute video showing the impact each branch has on its communities. Along with the five winners, five other finalists were presented with $10,000. These included two Queens libraries – the Sunnyside Library and Cambria Heights Library. Photo by Don Pollard (left to right) Julie Strauss-Gabel, publisher of Dutton Children’s Books; Langston Hughes Library Executive Director Andrew P. Jackson; and Bridget Quinn-Carey, interim president of the Queens Library Education package proposed to alleviate overcrowding BY ANGY ALTAMIRANO [email protected] @aaltamirano28 Elected officials in the state Senate have put forth a new plan that hopes to bring some relief to the overcrowded school districts throughout the city including western Queens. State Sen. Michael Gianaris and Senate Democrats announced the proposal of a $682 million investment into an education infrastructure bank. The funds would go into helping schools deal with issues surrounding physical capacity and school construction, allowing them to rebuild and renew facilities to accommodate growing populations. Gianaris, who represents Long Island City, Astoria and parts of Woodside, said this funding could help local western Queens schools in Districts 24 and 30, two of the most overcrowded in the city. “School overcrowding is a crisis directly affecting the lives of teachers, students and parents in western Queens every day and it must be dealt with immediately,” Gianaris said. “Our neighborhoods are growing and more needs to be done to ensure infrastructure keeps pace.” Gianaris added that such funding would help a school like P.S./I.S. 78 in Long Island City deal with its overcrowding issues, which have left some parents fearing for the truncation of the beloved middle school classes. “I will never stop fighting to provide A new proposed education package is looking to provide funding that will help schools, such as P.S./I.S. 78 in LIC, with overcrowding. our kids with the resources they deserve, and I will work to make this education infrastructure bank a reality quickly enough to solve the problems plaguing P.S./I.S. 78 and so many other schools in western Queens,” he said. The $682 million investment, which will be funded from the state’s projected surplus and settlement funds, THE COURIER/Photo by Angy Altamirano is also expected to provide support for teachers, fund community schools that offer holistic social service, and also begin a study to analyze the costeffectiveness of state testing.
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