• "Idle-free NYC" (It rhymes!) The AFSZ is planning a five-borough campaign to promote stop-idling driver behavior. The target day is Tuesday May 6, 2008, which coincides with World Asthma Day. There are three target audiences: schools, unions and businesses and the general public. More

  • "Help Wanted", The PossEble Theater Company performed this stop-idling skit (on opening morning) for elementary students at PS 20 in Brooklyn. The 15-minute skit, which educates and empowers children to reduce traffic-related asthma triggers in their community, was also performed at PS 11 and PS 28, in the Bronx where actors were joined onstage by New York City Councilmember John C. Liu, Chair of the Transportation Committee who took the part of "Dad". More
  • Idle-Free School Zones, an AFSZ initiative funded by the NYS Health Foundation is featured in the NYSHF 2007 Annual Report. The grant one of only 23 selected from an application pool of over 650 proposals, trained 100 Idle-free School Zone school crossing guards in Manhattan, Bronx and Brooklyn about asthma and Idling, and measured the PM2.5 exposure of three guards. More
    • AFSZ staff Lori Bukiewicz (Session #5007) and Rebecca Kalin (Session #5105) and Hunter College colleague Dr. Jen Richmond-Bryant (Session #5105) gave presentations about the AFSZ on November 7, 2007, at the 135th annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Washington, DC .
  • On October 25, 2007, AFSZ completed Phase 1 (baseline or pre-intervention) air quality data collection in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the last of three public school testing sites. Phase 2 (post-intervention) air sampling will re-test the air--following a year of AFSZ program implementation--at each school site exactly one year later in the identical location. The first followup air sampling began on October 29th in East Harlem (East 104th St.). In May/June 2008 there will be followup air sampling in the Bronx (East 156th St.). The air sampling program is funded under a Federal Highway Administration CMAQ grant through a partnership with NYC DOT. Watch
  • Last spring the AFSZ contacted NYC Councilmember and Transportation Chair John Liu urging introduction of a one-minute idling law. On October 17, 2007, there was a press conference on City Hall steps announcing the bill/Intro, which restricted all idling in school zones to 1-minute. Read
  • Read about the AFSZ program in The New Yorker magazine. (10/15/07)
  • School Zone News, a monthly AFSZ newsletter for school parents and staff, is now being offered in English, Spanish and Chinese. More
  • Last year the AFSZ contacted Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera urging the introduction of legislation that would restrict all vehicular idling and give enforcement to the 2004 school bus agreement. Governor Eliot Spitzer signed the legislation, NYS Education Law S 3637 in August 2007. On 9/26/07 there was a press conference in Harlem on East 104th Street. More
    • Time's up! The AFSZ is pushing for a change in the current, routinely ignored 3-minute idling law. A one-minute law is the kind of clean sweep needed to be noticed–and to help reach Mayor's Bloomberg's goal of NYC having "the cleanest air of any big city in the US.".
  • The AFSZ has a new sign for school zones! It reads No Smoking near School / Children's Lungs at Work. It references NYC Administrative Code 17-622, which prohibits use of any tobacco product on school grounds.

  • The AFSZ was one of 23 winning proposals selected from a field of over 600 proposals by NYSHealth, the newly created New York State Health Foundation. More
  • Read about the AFSZ program in Advance (September 2006)
  • Read about the AFSZ Director: Solutionary Women (June 2006)
  • The AFSZ is now offering environmental health information sessions at branch libraries of the New York Public Library. Staff member Olivia Perrotta Hare led workshops for adult and child audiences in Manhattan and the South Bronx. (April/May, 2006)
  • The J'ASTHMA! The AFSZ/Jazz for Peace Benefit Concert Join us on Tuesday, May 2, 2006 (7 PM) in an evening of cool jazz for a hot cause - asthma! The AFSZ has been chosen to be the recipient of one performance of an upcoming Off-Broadway Spring Benefit Concert Series. Tickets are $25 in advance; $30 at the door. Venue: Dillon's Restaurant and Lounge, 245 West 54th Street,(8th Avenue/Broadway).

    Thinking of doing a benefit with Jazz for Peace? Ask us about them!

  • AFSZ T-shirts "Che Guevara ... had asthma."
    Now available in NY black and classic white. $15.
    Postage/handling. $5. Specify color: S, M, L or XL.More

  • NYS Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announces agreements with five transportation companies to reduce air pollution from idling school buses in the New York City metropolitan region. Speaking with him at the press conference were Congressman Charles Rangel, Rebecca Kalin of the AFSZ, and Peggy Sheperd of WEACT. (9/26/05) More
  • NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg program as part of the $71M in federal funding passed by Congress, the Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) transportation bill. (8/3/05) More
  • US EPA awards the AFSZ program a national Excellence Award for Children's Environmental Health. (4/22/05) More
  • US EPA Region 2 awards AFSZ Founding Director Rebecca Kalin an Individual Achievement Award for Environmental Quality. (5/26/05) More

  • NYC DOT invites AFSZ to design a NYC bus shelter poster about idling: 450 appear across the City. More


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