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Top 5ive celebrates changemakers in our community

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By Doug LaRocque

Capital Region Independent Media

Pictured, left to right, are Youth honorees Evan Schieran of Columbia County, Courtney Taibi of Greene County, and Michael Sorrell of Albany County. Melanie Lekocevic/Capital Region Independent Media

COXSACKIE — The community gathered at The Wire event center Friday evening to celebrate and honor the people and businesses who make our communities the special places that they are.

All too often, the headlines we see every day are about the tragedies, crime and bad things that happen, but under all of this, behind the scenes, there are people in these towns, villages and cities that work tirelessly to make life a little better. We call them “changemakers,” the people who see things that need fixing and choose to stand up and make a difference.

On Friday night, April 26, Capital Region Independent Media (CRIM) held our second Top 5ive event at The Wire in Coxsackie. There was dinner, music and dancing, but also there was time to highlight these changemakers who were nominated by their community.

Each of the five winners in the four categories — Youth, Women, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and Business/Non-Profit — were called up to talk a little about what they or their organization does, receive their plaque and have their picture taken, individually and with family and friends.

Top 5ive honoree Pat Larsen with her “peeps.” Melanie Lekocevic/Capital Region Independent Media

Among these extraordinary individuals is Ravena resident Lucas Long, honored in the Youth category, a college student who is setting new records in aerospace engineering, and Ravena’s Michael Sorrell, who has demonstrated a remarkable level of grit and determination and is building a career with a local industry.

Greenville’s Shea Landversicht has leadership roles in numerous school organizations and Courtney Taibi is vice president of the New York State FFA, while Kinderhook’s Evan Schieran, an actor, athlete and scholar who has made tremendous contributions to his school and community.

This is just a small sampling of the achievements of the young people honored at the event.

In the Women category, this year’s honorees were Caitlin Appleby, Lisa DeGroff, Pat Larsen, Rosemary Luppino McHugh and Dawn Steward.

The BIPC winners were the Rev. Dr. Roxanne Jones Booth, the Rev. Antonio Booth, Shanatia Bygrave, Ruben Lindo and DeWayne Powell.

The awards in the Business/Non-Profit category went to Carver Companies, Helping Harvest, High & Mighty Therapeutic Riding & Driving Center, Innovation Station and Mueller’s Automotive.

Profiles of each of these winners, all of them from southern Albany, Columbia and Greene counties, can be found at TheUpstater.com.

The Top 5ive has grown in size and scope from its first gala last year, with The Wire staff having to roll out extra tables and chairs to accommodate the crowd.

In addition to The Wire, Capital Region Independent Media would like to thank all the events sponsors without whom we would not have been able to honor so many of these changemakers, and plans are already underway to do it all again next year.

Here are more images from this year’s Top 5ive event:

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