BLA CAUCUS Hosts 2nd Annual Employment and Small Business Resources Expo When: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7th from 10am to 3pm Where: Murry Bergtraum High School 411 Pearl St. New York, NY 10038  To attend the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus Employment Opportunities and Small Business Resources Expo event, please register online by 12/2.

Lower Manhattan Public Engagement Event The public is invited to come learn about the NY Rising Community Reconstruction Program and to share their ideas with the Planning Committee.    Come share your ideas for projects and strategies to make our community more resilient.  How can we increase the resiliency of small businesses? How can we better protect vulnerable populations in future emergency events? How can we better prepare our community for an emergency? SHARE YOUR IDEAS! Provide input via our interactive community map: www.nyrisingmap.org  The NY Rising Community Reconstruction program, established by the Governor's Office of Storm Recovery, is a community-driven process to realize a vision of a more sustainable future.    Monday, December 2, 2013 - 6:00pm    University Settlement at the Houston Street Center Gymnasium 273 Bowery - New York, NY 10002

Chinatown Family History  Many people today trace their family roots to Chinatown/Little Italy including CUNY Trustee Kathleen M. Pesile. Trustee Pesile's grandfather, Leonardo LoFrisco owned the building at 125 Elizabeth St from 1915 to around 1935. Mr. LoFrisco operated an Italian pork store on the street level and lived on the 2nd Fl raising 6 boys and 2 girls (one them Trustee Pesile's mother). The remaining 4 floors were rented out as multi-dwelling apartments. When Mr. LoFrisco sold the building, he bought an 196 acre farm in Staten Island and put his sons to work until after WWII, when they all joined the NYPD and NYFD.

Neighborhood Grants Through their Neighborhood Grants, Citizens Committee awards micro-grants of up to $3,000 to resident-led groups to work on community and school improvement projects throughout the city.    They prioritize groups based in low income neighborhoods and Title I public schools.  Recent awards have enabled neighbors to come together to make healthy food available in their communities, transform empty lots into community gardens, organize tenants to advocate for better housing conditions, and start school recycling drives.       Must See Chinatown: Aji Ichiban / 37 Mott St., 212-233-7650   By Michael Hsu   If you're new to the world of Asian candies and snacks, a trip to Aji Ichiban-more commonly known as Munchies Paradise-provides an essential crash course. The store is packed with all manner of sweets and savories in clear bins, so you see exactly what a flan-filled marshmallow or haw-flavored candy looks like before committing. Products are sold individually instead of in packages, so feel free to buy just a handful of those lychee-flavored gummies and a couple of each variety of sweet pickled plum (sometimes sour, sometimes salty). You'll also find savory snacks, like wasabi peas, Japanese rice crackers and even dried squid and cuttlefish. And the store's open-tasting policy welcomes those who are just curious.

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