Today, we introduce a few of the nominees who have already made New York a better place through their selfless actions and unflagging dedication.

The sweet story of how Susan Lucarelli came to be known to tens of thousands of kids as the "Bear Lady" began two days after Sept. 11, 2001, when an anxious young student in her class told her, "All I know is I need a hug."

"I hugged him, but I also had three teddy bears in the classroom and I gave him one," said Lucarelli, who teaches 9- and 10-year-olds at the Churchill School in Manhattan, a private school for learning-disabled kids.

"He just took hold of that bear and hugged it to his heart," added the 61-year-old Long Island mother of two. She then turned to friends at the Community Reformed Church of Manhasset, and they donated teddy bears for all her students.

Word spread about the bears, and soon principals all over New York City and Long Island were asking her for teddy bears for their schools.

Lucarelli put the word out for "huggable, new and at least 10- to 14-inch" bears. She and volunteers sorted, bagged and tagged the thousands that poured in - each with a little note from the giver - from around the nation.

"We delivered over 58,000 teddy bears in New York City and Long Island," she said.

"It meets the needs of a child in crisis. It is comfort, warmth, a sense of love," she said.

"And kids recognized the power of the love and the goodness coming to them from all across the country and the importance of that in their lives and the power it had to help them deal with the evil and the horror."

Since the war in Iraq, Lucarelli's Hugs Across America program has swung back into action, sending 10,000 bears to children whose parents are in the war.

Lucarelli's husband, Nick, nominated his wife for the Liberty Leadership medal for the "incredible job" she is doing. Donations of teddy bears, or money to buy them, can be sent to Hugs Across America, Manhasset Community Reformed Church, 90 Plandome Road, Manhasset, N.Y., 11030.