Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science was awarded more than $400,000 in economic stimulus funding for job creation and scientific research projects under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The four Drew projects funded by the National Institutes of Health are the first of several requests by the university to receive funding under the federal program designed to boost the national economy through investments in education and other essential public service projects.

The university received $140,998 for its new Neighborhood Structure and Cardiovascular Disease project which seeks to determine the social and environmental influences that contribute to heart disease in specific communities of Los Angeles County. These three ongoing projects also received federal funding: the Drew National High School Summer Research Apprentice Program (STEP-UP), the NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Disease program and the Biological Effects of Androgens in Men and Women program.

Dr. Keith Norris, Drew’s interim president, said the funds will “help nurture a new generation of scientists to develop practical solutions to some of the health disparities that have played havoc in so many poor and minority communities across the country.”

Dr. Theodore Friedman, who runs the androgens program, was equally optimistic about the funding, and said: “These are going to be our young doctors and researchers of tomorrow. Exposing them to exciting programs will help get them in careers of research.”

TOP OF THE HEAP — The NonProfit Times, a leading business publication covering the nonprofit sector, has honored Los Angeles Urban League President and CEO Blair H. Taylor as a member of the class of 2009 Power & Influence Top 50 List, which recognizes him as one of the nation’s top 50 executives and thinkers. In its 12th annual “Power and Influence Issue,” released on Aug. 1, the NonProfit Times cited Taylor as a leader in “creating program models that can be replicated to improve urban communities.” Taylor, who shares a listing with legendary Bill Gates, is one of only three Angelenos on the 2009 list, which includes Fred J. Ali, president and CEO of the Weingart Foundation, and Lisa Paulsen, president and CEO of the Entertainment Industry Foundation. The 50 P&I honorees will be feted for their work at a gala next month at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

TASK MASTERS — State Sen. Curren Price will hold the first meeting on local job creation Thursday with members of his newly formed 26th District Workforce Development Task Force at the California Science Center in Exposition Park. Price’s task force is charged with assisting him in coming up with strategies, plans and economic development programs designed to create at least 10,000 jobs in his district by the end of 2011. The senator appointed the following to his task force: Leonard Mitchell, USC Center for Economic Development; Gregory Irish, L.A. Workforce Investment Board; Michael Dolphin, California Employment Development Department, Workforce Services Division; Jamillah Moore, president, L.A. City College; David Roberts, USC Office of Government Relations; Denise Fairchild, L.A. Trade-Technical College; Stephen McGlover, California Community Connection; Trevor Ware, L.A. Urban League and David Crippins, chairman, LAUSD Bond Oversight Committee.

FLYING HIGH — A pair of sisters — African-American teenage pioneering pilots from Compton, who learned to fly at a Los Angeles inner-city aeronautical program — will fly to Sacramento Monday where state Sen. Rod Wright will present them with resolutions on the Senate floor at noon heralding their aeronautical achievements.

The honorees are 15-year-old Kimberly Anyadike, who last month became the first Black female to pilot a plane across the country and back, and her 17-year-sister, Kelly Anyadike, who made her way into the Guinness Book of World Records on her 16th birthday last year by becoming the youngest Black female to solo in four different fixed-wing aircraft on the same day. The sisters’ flying instructor, Robin Petgrave, founder and director of Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum (TAM), will accompany them to the State Capitol, where he, too, will be honored by the Senate.

FIELD TRIP — Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas led a 10-member delegation to Clinton, Tenn., this week to participate in the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools’ annual conference. This trip was a fact-finding mission in anticipation of launching similar education programs in the 2nd Supervisorial District next summer. The CDF, founded by pioneering children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman, operates 100 Freedom Schools throughout the nation. The schools provide high quality summer and after-school enrichment programs. Ridley-Thomas attended a CDF training session in June and has been working with the organization on plans to establish some of its successful programs in his district. A delegation of pastors, educators, activists and social service providers accompanied the supervisor to the two-day conference, which was held at the famed Alex Haley Farm.

A BEACH HEAD! — My son, Kevin Herrera, the editor-in-chief of the Santa Monica Daily Press, published an op-ed piece in his newspaper last week that read as if was written by our own Expo Line foe, Damien Goodmon. But it wasn’t. It was written by Oscar de la Torre, a member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Board of Education, director of the Pico Youth and Family Center and busy activist in Santa Monica’s minority Pico neighborhood. In his piece, entitled “Getting on the Train of Environmental Justice,” de la Torre decries the beach city’s environmental assault on its poorer neighborhood and points to the effects of the proposed Expo Line in that neighborhood as another manifestation of environmental racism. “The wealthier and more powerful will receive disproportionate benefits from the Expo Line and the less wealthy will receive disproportionate burdens,” de la Torre wrote. “This paradigm must be challenged if we are to rectify the legacy of environmental justice that has stained Santa Monica’s image of progressive policy making.”
De la Torre is against the Expo Line and is rallying his community to fight it. Welcome to the war, de la Torre.

THIS AND THAT — A fundraiser for Gloria Gray, candidate for the 51st Assembly District seat, will be held Friday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Oasis, 3320 W. Manchester Blvd. in Inglewood, as a prelude to the formal opening of Gray’s Inglewood campaign office Sunday at 2300 W. Manchester from 2 to 5 p.m. … The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the proposal to open a new Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. in the Board Hearing Room of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. This date and time are subject to change, so confirm it before you show up to speak your peace. Call (213) 974-2222.

AND FINALLY — Councilwoman Jan Perry told an interesting story when she and state Sen. Alex Padilla introduced San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at his first South L.A. appearance as a potential gubernatorial candidate last month. Perry told the crowd that early one day she received a strange telephone call from a man who responded to her “hello” with an enthusiastic “Who’s your favorite mayor?!” Perry said, “What?” and the man asked again: “Who’s your favorite mayor?!”

The councilwoman said she was unsure how to reply, given that her favorite mayor was Newsom. So she ignored the question, which, as it turned out, was being asked by her own mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. Now, if someone were to wake me from a deep sleep and ask me who’s my favorite mayor, I wouldn’t hesitate to say, “Tom Bradley!”