Our intention is to draw support for the nameing of a new courthose building in Buffalo, N.Y. after a local hero, Carolyn B. Thomas, who is credited with founding the Food Bank of Western New York. News of her death has raised here profile to the attention of the community and we have learned that as a Africian American woman, which hadit's share of prejedices even today was able to found an orgaination that means so much to so many. To name a building after her would show to Buffaloians, the "City of Good Neigboors" that helping people is important and valued so much -that we'll honour it - with the naming of a building after a person who helped an entire city beyond measure. Carolyn B. Thomas was a tireless volunteer and longtime advocate in Buffalo's African community, Mrs. Thomas volunteered with a wide range of organizations, from Girl Scouts to activities of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. In the early 1970s, she was president of the Family Life Consortium, a group of representatives for medically indigent neighborhoods and agencies that worked in those areas. It was as the Council of Churches's representative to the Community Action Organization that Mrs. Thomas initiated a campaign for a food bank, which she considered her greatest achievement. She spent several years helping to locate a site for a central warehouse for the agency, which finally opened at the Seneca Industrial Center warehouse in April 1983. The Buffalo News recognized her as one of its 1983 Citizens of the Year. In 1984, Mrs. Thomas received the Buffalo Branch NAACP's Community Service Award. A few years later, as chairwoman emeritus of the Food Bank of Western New York, Mrs. Thomas was named 1990 Buffalonian of the Year by then-Mayor James B. Griffin. Other honors she received came from the Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Mary B. Talbert Club and the National Conference of Christians and Jews, among others.

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