City Councilmember Domenic Recchia honored the Respect for All essay contest winners at the District 21 Community Education Council (CEC) meeting on March 21.
The Respect for All program, launched by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, aims to put an end to the bullying epidemic. Students were told to write an essay about what it means to be respectful to others. There were over 800 submissions, but only 25 winners.
You are entitled to your own opinion and you can disagree, but you have to respect people, Recchia said. This program is doing a great job getting down the number of incidents of bullying in the community.
The pre-k to fifth grade winner was Daniel Rosov; the sixth through eighth grade winner was Ka Li La and the ninth through 12th grade winner was Edward Schusteff. There were also Honorable Mention winners: Daniella Smith, Yasmina Rashidova, Nadire Mashkulli, Jayden Nguyen, Julia Flam, Diana Rosumov, Maria Russo, Ursula Podosenin, Elan Oumavs, Takeera Garcy, Brenda Bladze and Laura Ann Fiorentino.
Recchia praised the students for their work. You should be proud about winning tonight, he said. Hopefully in the future, we wont have to have this [contest] because the problem will be solved.