On a recent weekday afternoon in Brooklyn, local residents gathered at Fort Greene Park to celebrate six resilient community caregivers at the eighth annual ‘Community Heroes’ celebration.
The six recipients were all chosen through local volunteer nominations and officialized through the Community Heroes Council. Asmeret Berhe-Lumax for One Love Community Fridge, Ikim Brown’s work in the Kings Against Violence Initiative, Vera Scanlon for her civic education projects, Bernell Grier who led IMPACCT Brooklyn, Kathy Urbina for her work in Families with Children from China and The Gardeners of Fort Greene Park for their erosion control solutions.
The Community Heroes project– part of an initiative funded by the nonprofit Fort Greene Park Conservancy– started in 2016 as a simple building block to allow the community to honor each other and highlight the good deeds that make the neighborhood a better place to live. Now in 2024, it has become an important reminder of what helps keep Fort Greene running: the hard work of volunteers.
“What you’re seeing today is this opportunity for the neighborhood to rally around each other and celebrate the incredible humans that make neighborhoods like Fort Greene great,” said Zac Martin, co-founder of the Community Heroes celebration.
Heroes such as Berhe-Lumax founded One Love Community Fridge, a nonprofit battles food insecurity by supplying fresh foods to local fridges and nutrition education to those in need.
Ikim Brown was chosen for his work in the Kings Against Violence Initiative, a holistic approach to violence intervention starting at a young age. He said it was a deeply personal project not only to him, but to his friends that were crowned as community heroes in previous years. After experiencing violence in his past, Brown hopes that he can keep the youth of Fort Greene safe.
Vera Scanlon said she was thrilled to be chosen for her work in helping to demystify the judiciary system.
“It was a nice surprise in the middle of the day” said Scanlon, recounting the day she got the email saying she was chosen to be a community hero for her focus on literacy and law. “Of course I’ll accept an award,” she chuckled.
Scanlon’s initiative helps students and neighbors understand how the judiciary system works with courthouse visits, mock trials, and art projects to further the education of the democratic process.
The Community Heroes is also part of a collaboration with Photoville, a nonprofit arts group, and Trellis, a community-development non-profit. Portraits of the six heroes, with a description of their contributions written by high school students, are now on display along the fence that borders the park and Brooklyn Hospital Center.
The art project integrates itself into the community further by using local photographers to take images of the recipients.
“I love the project, and even before COVID, I always liked art that was interactive with the passerby,” said Francesca Magnani, who photographed Scanlon for the photo display.
As area residents mingled to read the banners and talk to the award recipients, there was already a sign-up sheet stationed on a table asking for 2025 community hero nominees.
The Community Heroes project has expanded to neighboring Commodore Barry Park, as well parks in Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights.
“We would love to see this happen in other neighborhoods as people consider how they can celebrate their own different neighborhoods,” said Martin.
