[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 21, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1913-E1914]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN RECOGNITION OF AGUSTIN RIVERA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 21, 1999

  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the efforts of 
an extraordinary member of my community. For the past decade, Agustin 
Rivera has demonstrated time and again his commitment and his vision 
for his community.
  Mr. Rivera was a founding member of Musica Against Drugs, a Puerto 
Rican and Latino, client-driven, community-based agency created to 
serve the needs of individual and families affected by the HIV/AIDS and 
drug addition epidemics in the Brooklyn, New York communities of 
Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick. Mr. Rivera's skills, talent, and 
energy helped the late Manny Maldonado, the founder of Musica, 
establish a program to fulfill a desperately acute need. For several 
years they, like too many who were on the vanguard battling the 
pandemic of AIDS, worked very hard with very little money.
  After three years of volunteer organizing, Musica received its first 
public grant. This gave Mr. Rivera the opportunity to become stipend/
outreach worker and, later, Outreach Coordinator. He then became the 
first program director of an innovative nutritional program, La Cocina 
del Pueblo, which provides nutritional services to people with HIV/
AIDS. Subsequently, he became the Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator 
and, most recently, the Director of the Community Prevention Project.
  Even while giving his all--and then some--to Musica, Mr. Rivera found 
the time for some

[[Page E1914]]

other impressive accomplishments as well. He was a founding member of 
the Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick HIV CARE Network. Last and 
hardly least, he is married to Marilyn Echevarria, and has an 11-year-
old son, Austin.
  Robert F. Kennedy once said, ``It is from the numberless diverse acts 
of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man 
stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes 
out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and 
crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and 
daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest 
walls of oppression and resistance.''
  Mr. Speaker, Mr. Rivera has gained the respect of all who have had 
the privilege of knowing him, and all who have been blessed by 
experiencing his dedication and compassion. He has saved lives, and he 
has made lives better, all by his example that life is to be lived. He 
is a ripple of hope, and this world is a better place for his being in 
it.

                          ____________________