Brian Laird on WNYc on WNYc and we'll close the show today by unveiling the topic for and asking for your help

with this year's Larer Prize for Community Well Being.

What is this?

Well a few years ago, some you know I was very humbled

by the station leadership coming up with the idea that in the spirit of what we try

to do regularly on the show that we also establish an annual prize that the show and the station

bestow on a few groups or individuals working to enhance community well-being in one way or another.

For 21, for example, we recognize people

who help get access to COVID vaccines

for people who didn't have easy access.

Remember in those earliest days when it was so hard to get an

appointment that seems so quaint now, but it was a big source of inequality

then, especially in the communities that were hardest hit by the virus in those awful early days.

So that was the topic of our prize in 2021.

For 2022, we gave the award to people working on the social and emotional well-being of children,

which of course was so impacted by the pandemic

as kids were re-emerging into the in-person school world

and with many family losses and anxieties the pandemic inflicted on kids.

Well for the 2023 LARE Prize for Community Well Being, the group of us who work on this

have selected as our topic, helping the asylum seekers. Helping the asylum seekers. Why that? Well, most of the media's attention to the issue of the asylum seekers has been on the policy and the financial aspects, right?

We were talking about it earlier on the show with the City Council Finance Chair Justin Brannon.

What should the border policies be?

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