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 Luis Garden Acosta
Founder/President & CEO
Luis
Garden Acosta is a national voice for human rights in the context of community building.
In 1982, he founded El Puente in his home community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For the
past 23 years, he has led El Puente as a beacon for holistic learning and development,
inextricably tied to the quest for peace and justice. Luis embodies a commitment to the
arts with a passion for science and a missionary zeal for peace and justice. He is at once
a not-for-profit CEO who is at home leading community campaigns for educational reform and
environmental justice; a Principal Investigator for federally funded, scientific research;
and an arts advocate who chaired and founded diverse arts organizations.
Always a bridge builder, Luis Garden Acosta has contributed his leadership to such
different organizations as the National Science Foundation, the New York City
Environmental Justice Alliance, New Yorkers for Parks, Citizens Union, The New York City
Food Bank, the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, and the Young Lords Party.
CAFE, (Community Alliance For the Environment), initiated and led by Luis, dramatically
stopped the building of a 55 story incinerator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and is now
leading the campaign to close New York's only and critically hazardous, radioactive and
chemical waste storage plant, Radiac, located one block from a public elementary school in
the Southside of Williamsburg.
Mr. Garden Acosta assisted in the writing of the Surgeon General's Report on Public Health
and Self-Help and has helped guide projects of national importance for organizations such
as the Center for Children and Technology, The California Wellness Foundation and the
National Network for Youth. He has worked directly to inspire and nurture El Puente-like
organizations from California to Massachusetts.
Spirited by a unique background as a graduate of St. Mary's Seminary, as a Harvard Medical
School student and as a community development organizer for New York City's Office of the
Mayor, Luis Garden Acosta has truly followed a holistic path. He led the community
medicine division of a hospital and has produced and hosted popular culture radio and
television programs. In the 60's, he launched a "university of the streets" and
in the 70's he directed a statewide humanities program. In the 80's he led (as its
President) the nation's first and largest Afro-Cuban music school. He began his journey in
holistic activism as a principal organizer for national welfare rights.
His many awards include the "Spirit of the City" from the Cathedral of St. John
the Divine, the Public Works Award and "Celebrating Success" from the Children's
Defense Fund. Along with his partner, Frances Lucerna, Luis Garden Acosta is the 1998
Heinz Award Winner for the Human Condition.
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