Leaders of Manhattan's Chinatown and New York City officials will be honored for years of service to the Chinese community at the annual gala of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corp on June 19.

The partnership is a non-profit, public-private organization founded in 2006 that works with residents, business owners and community groups to maintain and develop Chinatown. The organization's 7th Annual Benefit & Awards Gala will be held at Jing Fong Restaurant.

Father Raymond Nobiletti, pastor of the Transfiguration Church and School, will be given the Community Leadership Award. He is a Maryknoll priest who spent 15 years as a missionary in Hong Kong, and now helps new immigrants to adapt to Chinatown.

During the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, he was caught in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, emerging from the rubble with other survivors. He ministered the injured and dying.

Dr Wilson Ko, past president of the Chinese American Medical Society, will receive the Community Leadership Award. A renowned heart and lung surgeon, Ko is the attending cardiothoracic surgeon at Beth Israel Medical Center. He immigrated to San Francisco with his family at the age of 12 and studied medicine at Cornell University.

Ko has been active in serving the Chinese-American community in New York on multiple fronts. He has been on the board of directors of his medical society for eight years, and contributed to community health-education seminars as well as health-related articles in Chinese newspapers and on radio programs. Ko was a visiting professor at the First Municipal Hospital in Guangzhou, China.

Harvard Tang, president of On Leong Chinese Merchant Association, will be given the Business Leadership Award. Tang is also vice-president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of New York. He works with the Chinese-American community to help it develop.

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For China Daily