Although some of New York’s biggest personalities – Bobby Short, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Bruce Wasserstein – were in attendance, the Citizens for NYC dinner Monday celebrated the lesser-known names that work to improve the city.

“We are a small town, and we like each other mostly,” Mr. Short said.

According to Citizens for NYC’s president, Michael Clark, New York City is made up of 397 small towns – our neighborhoods.

“What we do is based on our knowledge that people will develop a stake in this thing called their neighborhood. They’ll spend their own time and money to improve their neighborhood,” Mr. Clark said.

When Jacob Javits founded the group in 1975, he hoped citizens would take responsibility when the government could not because it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

“The bottom line in the early days was fighting the sense that the city was falling apart,” Mr. Clark said. Cleaning up graffiti and garbage were the primary objectives.

As the city has changed, so have the programs. Today the group organizes, trains, and funds volunteers to improve their neighborhoods in seven areas: safety, beautification, poverty, urban environment, youth service, youth entrepreneurship, and neighborhood diversity.

“Neighborhood volunteers, that’s the army that we work with. They’re not going to build hospitals or figure out a policy on nuclear power or generate millions of dollars for capital investment. It’s the stuff that people can do by rolling up their sleeves,” Mr. Clark said.

Citizens for NYC’s current budget is $3 million. It is hoping to build a volunteer training center, and start a capital reserve fund with a $6 million capital campaign, named the Campaign for Civic Renewal. So far the group has raised $3.8 million, and has 19 months to raise an additional $2.2 million.

“We’ve been very successful on the front of raising money for programs, and less successful in raising money for the other two purposes. Now we’re really beginning to push,” Mr. Clark said.

The group has historically received the bulk of its support from foundations, but is now looking to bring in more prominent and affluent New Yorkers as individual donors, an effort led by its chairman, a Goldman Sachs managing director, Henry Cornell.

The honorees of the event were the Brooklyn Rescue Mission, founded in 2002 in Bedford-Stuyvesant; New York magazine; college student Antonio Fung, who surveyed 25 square blocks in Long Island City and hopes to become a cartographer; Mr. Short, and in keeping with Valentine’s Day, two couples: Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder and Mr. Schlesinger and his wife, Alexandra.

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Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit edition hits newsstands yesterday. The 31-year-old model Carolyn Murphy graces its cover in a raspberry bikini, and retired baseball player Mark McGwire is featured inside with his wife Stephanie. All three were at an event yesterday to promote the issue.

In addition to the traditional bombshells, this year’s features a bevy of sporty beauties, including Olympic medalists Jennie Finch, Amanda Beard, and Lauren Jackson and tennis star Venus Williams. Women aren’t the only ones striking poses: In addition to Mr. And Mrs. McGwire, Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson is pictured with his wife, Shikiri, and athletic couple A.J. Feeley and Heather Mitts appear – he’s a Miami Dolphins quarterback and she’s a U.S. soccer player.