Queens Ledger: Brooklyn Public Library TCOB With Giant Checks to Contest WinnersDateline : Thursday, June 16, 2005
BPL TCOB With Giant Checks to Contest Winners
By Reed Jackson
It may not be a for-profit operation, exactly, but the Brooklyn Public Library is definitely taking care of business. Last weekend, library officials announced the winners of its Power Up! Business Plan Competition. The contest, sponsored by the BPL's Business Library in Brooklyn Heights, saw more than 280 people feverishly duking it out to create the best business plan, using resources from the business library. The contestants, who came from all over the borough, submitted 67 plans, and were guided by a crack squad of instructors representing the upper crust of Brooklyn business, including Joan Bartolomeo president of the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation and Geri Jasper of the Bed-Stuy Restoration Corporation.
"Every one of you achieved a dream by figuring out how to move forward on realizing that dream," Ginnie Cooper, the executive director of the Brooklyn Public Library, told the large crowd of contestants and well-wishers that packed the branch's small auditorium last Saturday afternoon.Guided by instructors, contestants made extensive use of the Business Library, drawing up marketing plans, identifying revenue streams and forming budgetary principles.
The exhaustive, intensive process takes 10 months, and in some respects is more of a crash course in starting a business rather than a winner-take-all contest. The contest was created in 2002 to encourage more use of the Business Library."People want the resources to take control of their own destinies," said Kathleen Parisi, of Citibank, which helped create and sponsors the contest. And unlike the winners of, say, "The Apprentice", Power Up! victors end up doing more than just filling an office.
The winners of the 2002-2003 contest (the first), George Constantinou and Farid Omar Ali, will be opening up their creation, a Latin bistro called Bogota, on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope in a matter of weeks. The pair, who behave a little like a Brooklyn version of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, dropped by the ceremony to give advice to the budding businesspeople.
"Winning the first contest really put us in motion," George beamed. "It gave us the confidence to knock on doors that we otherwise may not have tried. We really ran with the title of "Business Plan Winners", even if it didn't mean much to some people," he laughed. "There will be a lot of setbacks, but never give up," Farid chipped in. "And use the busines s library."
The award recipients provided evidence of a wealth of diversity and entrepreneurial gumption. Three Honorable Mention awards, consisting of $250 and, like all the other prizes, a number of in-kind services, went to plans cooked up by an aspiring chocolatier a future purveyor of elegant hair clips, and a fine seafood purveyor.
Three Merit Awards, consisting of $500, went to a baler, a dealer in European art and home accessories, and a young woman who wants to boost tourism in Brooklyn through an aggressively marketed youth hostel.
The runner-up prizes, consisting of a whopping $15,000, went to a plus-size clothing designer and two women who want to set up a 1940s-themed coffeehouse in Windsor Terrace.
And then came the big first prize, a staggering $15,000, which went to Sid Weyman, who wants to start up a sandwich shop specializing in Philly-style cheesesteaks and hoagies in Crown Heights.
Weyman, who started tearing up when his name was announced, was effusive in his thanks."Information is power," he declared. Describing his first encounter with the business library years ago, when he was a young businessman hungry to secure government contracts. "I was amazed at the resources," he said. "I fell in love...This has empowered me tremendously."
Ginnie Cooper had one last word of advice to the future Donald Trumps gathered before her. "When you get rich from your work here today," she said, "Remember us. We need you."
