Meet the 2009 Honorees

 Theodore M. Shaw is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University. He is the former Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the nation's premier civil rights law firm.

Anita Nager is Executive Director of the Beldon Fund and served for seven years as its Director of Programs. The Beldon Fund, founded and chaired by John Hunting, has sought to build a national consensus to achieve and sustain a healthy planet. A spend-out foundation, the Fund has invested its entire principal and earnings over a ten-year period toward the attainment of this goal. Anita is guiding the final spend out, communication of lessons learned, and the conclusion of operations scheduled for the end of May 2009. When the Beldon Fund closes its doors it will have allocated more than $120 million in grants and foundation directed projects.

Prior to Beldon, Anita was a Senior Program Officer for Community Development and the Environment at The New York Community Trust where she designed a grantmaking strategy for a $100 million fund focused on national environmental issues. 

A former Board Chair of the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, Anita also is a past board member of the Neighborhood Funders Group and the Environmental Grantmakers Association. She was a founding board member of Cause Effective, which provides management and resource development assistance to nonprofit organizations, and a founder of the AIDS and Adolescents Network of New York.

Anita is a trustee of the Hudson River Foundation and chairs the Advisory Board of its New York City Environment Fund, providing environmental stewardship grants to grassroots organizations. She is a founder and current co-chair of the Health and Environment Funders Network.

Anita was recognized by the Breast Cancer Fund at their 2008 Heroes Tribute for her "philanthropic leadership and nurturance of the environmental health movement."

She is a graduate of Simmons College, and completed her M.A. in environmental psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

The Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot Taskforce is made up of 17 members including community leaders, community based organizations and local elected representatives who share a common set of concerns and vision regarding the demolition and reconstruction of the century old Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot.

Located at 721 Lenox Avenue in Central Harlem, Northern Manhattan, the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot, was originally a trolley barn built in the 1890s. It was structurally modified in 1939 to become the 146th Street Bus Depot. MTA New York City Transit rehabilitated the depot in 1990, renaming it in honor of Mother Clara McBride Hale in 1993. Today, MTA New York City Transit is in the process of replacing the existing depot with a new green building that has environmentally friendly features.

WE ACT for Environmental Justice created the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot Taskforce along with Assembly Member Herman “Denny” Farrell to oversee MTA New York City Transit’s planned demolition and reconstruction of the bus depot. The taskforce has been instrumental in holding MTA New York City Transit accountable to the community by demanding that the agency incorporate community concerns into every aspect of the demolition and construction process.

Recognizing the need to fully understand the potential environmental and health impacts of the bus depot, the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot Taskforce – in conjunction with WE ACT – sponsored 3 informational sessions in 2008 to inform community residents of the impending demolition and reconstruction of the bus depot. Early in the process, the taskforce put forth a list of environmental demands to make certain that community residents’ concerns were heard and addressed in an efficient and professional manner. Among the many demands developed by the group were the need to incorporate “green designs,” implement best practices on all demolition and construction activities, the initiation of a community outreach and information program, a depot pollution reduction program and the implementation and enforcement of a local hire/training program.

Due in large part to the Taskforce’s organizing and advocacy, MTA New York City Transit has agreed to attend monthly meetings with the Taskforce and has identified a host of environmental considerations to minimize demolition and construction impacts on the local community, which includes the Esplanade Gardens Cooperative (a 1,870-unit high rise Mitchell-Lama complex), the A. Philip Randolph Senior Center, and Dunbar Houses.

Over the past year, community leaders have been able to work collaboratively with MTA New York City Transit representatives to ensure meaningful community participation, collaborative decision–making and ongoing constructive dialogue on the design, demolition and construction of the depot. The Taskforce has also been instrumental in tackling other environmental problems that have arisen, including the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) plan to remove soil from a now defunct gas station. Residents rallied to ensure that all clean up activities proposed had minimal effects on the environment and little or no effect on residents.