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Lower Eastside Girls Club Founder Nominated for Diane von Furstenberg Award

By Patrick Hedlund | February 9, 2011 5:51pm

By Patrick Hedlund

DNAinfo News Editor

EAST VILLAGE — For Lower Eastside Girls Club director Lyn Pentecost, it helps having friends in high places.

Pentecost, who founded the club in 1996 to provide programs she found lacking for female youth on the Lower East Side, was recently named a finalist for designer Diane von Furstenberg's "People's Voice" award, thanks to a nomination from actress and former East Villager Rosario Dawson.

"I think she probably knows Diane von Furstenberg personally, and they're both big feminists," Pentecost said of Dawson's nomination. "It's really a nomination for the whole Girls Club."

The winner will bank $50,000 for her respective organization, but Pentecost joins some tough competition vying the honor. The all-female nominees include organizations seeking to end violence against women, to provide support for military widows, to teach women about careers in politics, and to advocate for African immigrants living in New York.

Rosario Dawson helped break ground at the Lower Eastside Girls Club's new center on Avenue D last October.
Rosario Dawson helped break ground at the Lower Eastside Girls Club's new center on Avenue D last October.
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DNAinfo/Patrick Hedlund

Pentecost — who noted she's currently in second place, with online voting set to end on Feb. 15 — credited the Lower East Side community for helping give back to the Girls Club through the years.

"This is going to sound corny, but they say it takes a village," she said of the support the club has received from local small businesses, who donate money and space for Girls Club programming.

The club, which currently has about 500 members and countless alumni, will be able to triple in size after its new Avenue D headquarters finishes construction next year, Pentecost said.

She is still amazed at how far the club has come in 15 years, and all that progress with culminate with next year's opening of the new 30,000-sqaure-foot center.

"My biggest obstacles were the skeptics — people just couldn't believe we could do it," she said of the state-of-the-art facility. "Now that we've broken ground, they believe."

And despite all the recent strides made by the Girls Club, the prize money would certainly still come in handy.

"I always like to say, anyone that gives us a dollar, we stretch it into two," Pentecost added. "We're very resourceful with the little we get."