“I was meant to be a lawyer. I was 3 years old when I came to America. As an immigrant, I can fully relate to the Latino law community’s experience…
READ STORY
“My family emigrated from Greece in 1982 and brought the love of animals and earth with them…
WATCH NOW“I’m a CPA by trade. I was in accounting for five years, and then I transitioned into finance. I was working at my job for very long hours…
READ STORY“When I was 10 years old, I had a terrible case of acne that made me feel incredibly insecure about my skin…
READ STORY“I’ve always thrived in businesses that were entrepreneurial. My love language is innovation…
READ STORY“I’ve always loved helping people. When I was in high school, I was a candy striper, and I really liked it…
READ STORY“Finding out in 1979 that I was mixed-race on my dad’s side has been just an ongoing process of meeting the family and discovering ancestors…
READ STORY“I’m not a renaissance man. I like what I like. I have my interests — musical theater and classic motion pictures…
READ STORY“I grew up in a small town in Sicily. In my family, farming has been a cherished tradition passed down from one generation to the next…
READ STORY“I went to SUNY New Paltz to become an art teacher. Finding art teaching jobs was hard…
READ STORY“That day started like any other. I got to the World Trade Center at about 8:40 a.m. My office at Cantor Fitzgerald was on the 101st floor…
READ STORY“I had the same childhood dream as a lot of kids: You grow up wanting to be the next Major League Baseball superstar or NFL quarterback…
READ STORY“I am known as ‘The Movie Man.’ I earned that name while growing up in Jamaica, Queens…
READ STORY“We really didn’t know my son was deaf until he was 3 years old, when he started talking with deaf speech…
READ STORY“I first realized I enjoyed performing when I was in the third to fourth grade…
READ STORY“Aviation is a fascination that any child might have no matter where they are in the world; just look up in the sky…
READ STORY“I like to say that I specialize in making happy art, and that my work is proven to give an immediate mood-booster, with the goal to brighten up your day…
READ STORY“I’m first-generation. My mom was right off the boat. She came from the Caribbean. She had me when she was 17 and fell into a coma when I was 7…
READ STORY“I am a mom of two young kids. My daughter is 7 and my son is 4. I work part time as a nurse anesthetist three days a week…
READ STORY“My second child tried to commit suicide on May 16, 2019. I took her to Southside Hospital. They wanted to know why. She informed them she was being bullied…
READ STORY“I walked away from my union job, and I haven’t looked back since. Everybody knows me as ‘Big Red.’…
READ STORY“During the pandemic, I was introduced to podcasts and fell in love with them because of their on-demand nature…
READ STORY“I have always been involved in my community, especially during my high school days. There were many community events that took place, and it was easy for me to get involved…
READ STORY“I grew up in Port Jefferson. From a young age, I always wanted to be a business owner, but I wasn’t tremendously involved in school…
READ STORY“I moved to Massapequa from Flushing when I was 7 with my mom, dad and two sisters…
READ STORY“My grandparents owned Two Morrow’s Pub, which is an Irish bar in Patchogue. It was a very respected place for many years…
READ STORY“My parents were very charitable people. My mother came from Poland when she was young; my father fled the Nazis from Austria…
READ STORY“My whole purpose and passion is helping young and adult men of color. I raised my son as a single mother…
READ STORY“I got the audition for ‘Rent’ in 1995; I grew up in Woodbury and Syosset playing in bands…
READ STORY“I had shortness of breath, fatigue, and couldn’t walk and talk at the same time. For nine weeks, I continued to get worse…
READ STORY“I started makeup to express myself and try to push myself into a creative space. When I was in college, I started working in a makeup store at the mall and really loved it…
READ STORY“My dad moved to out West when I was 5. My sister and I were raised by a single mother, living in two-bedroom apartments. We lived paycheck to paycheck…
READ STORY“I’m the oldest of the kids in the family; I have four little brothers and a little sister, so I was always the one in charge if my parents weren’t around…
READ STORY“My son, Luke, passed away last October just two days shy of his third birthday…
READ STORY“When I was an undergraduate biology major, I met a chiropractor, a doctor who believes that the body can cure itself if you release its own healing ability…
READ STORY“My parents instilled a love for animals in me at a young age. We always had pets growing up, and they taught me to respect all living things…
READ STORY“I was overweight as a child, and I got teased a lot. I was also a huge fan of professional wrestling, and I wanted to be a wrestler…
READ STORY“My grandparents are from Ukraine, and they emigrated to Poland during World War II. I was born in Poland…
READ STORY“I was in a bad motorcycle accident and almost lost my right leg on July 31, 2021…
READ STORY“There were moments of sheer terror. I started off as a police officer in the Bronx in 1988, got promoted to detective and wound up doing undercover…
READ STORY“We came to this country in 1994 with nothing in our pockets. My first job barely made the end goals. My brother-in-law was in the gas station business…
READ STORY“Car shows, meetups — I’ve been going since I was a baby. I was born in East New York, then moved to South Ozone Park when I was 9; I’m 69 now…
READ STORY“When I was playing halfback for the New York Jets in the early 1970s, I had never heard of CTE [chronic traumatic encephalopathy]…
READ STORY“I went for a weekend away with my friends to Rochester to stay at a friend’s house and have a home-cooked meal. I went to Buffalo State…
READ STORY“I was born in Amityville but raised from a young age in Brentwood in a hardworking blue-collar family. My mom is from Emporia, Virginia, which is very Southern…
READ STORY“I was born in India and studied botany. I was engaged to my husband who was living in New York. In 1987, I followed him here so we could get married…
READ STORY“I’m an Asian Muslim woman, a proud mom of six kids. My oldest just graduated from medical school and got engaged. My parents are from Pakistan…
READ STORY“I remember after seeing Wicked’s ‘Defying Gravity,’ on Broadway … I had this feeling of ‘I want to do this. I want to be onstage.’…
READ STORY“I moved here from Italy about seven years ago. My mother was born in Brooklyn, but my grandfather moved back to Sicily when she was at a very young age…
READ STORY“Back in 2009, when the country was in an economic recession, I was let go from my job. I was with that company for 10 years. A few months later, my father died of cancer…
READ STORY“When I was young, about 11, I went to Italy for the summer with my uncle…
READ STORY“From a very young age, I struggled pretty badly with a learning disability…
READ STORY“I wasn’t feeling good last summer, and I kept putting it off. So I finally decided to make a physical appointment…
READ STORY“I was born in Huntington and lived most of my life there. I’m fortunate enough to work as a citizen advocate in the town where I grew up…
READ STORY“My mother was the one who instilled the importance of education in my sister, Diana, and me…
READ STORY“When I learned at 37 that I had Parkinson’s disease, I was devastated. As a podiatrist and foot surgeon, I knew my medical career was going to end, and I was worried about my health…
READ STORY“Cup stacking is where you stack specially designed cups in certain sequences as fast as you can…
READ STORY“I’ve really been playing sports all my life. I started taking sports very seriously probably in high school, when it started to get competitive…
READ STORY“I worked in a pharmacy for all my life, most recently as a manager, but once I was diagnosed with three cancers in the same year during 2019, I started to wonder if there was something out there that would be more fulfilling…
READ STORY“I was born and raised in Miller Place. It was not easy growing up there. Everybody always made fun of me just for being different…
READ STORY“The original intent of my company was just bridal flower preservation…
READ STORY“I got interested in farming several years ago when I was in Vermont on the property of a couple who grew their own food and kept animals like sheep, cows and chickens…
READ STORY“My mom was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in 1994. I went to a psychic, and as I walked in the door, he brought up my mother…
READ STORY“I was always good with numbers and I loved formulas. I like how precise math is; there is no interpretation or gray area…
READ STORY“Seventeen years ago, I found a small bald spot at the nape of my neck. Then another one developed right near it and merged into one softball-sized bald spot…
READ STORY“I was born with albinism, and my parents encouraged me to not let my limited vision stop me from trying new things…
READ STORY“I was a mess during the pandemic and was so ashamed that I tried to keep my emotions bottled up, which was unhealthy…
READ STORY“I majored in theater at NYU, and after graduating started a nonprofit theater company with my then-husband…
READ STORY“In 2013, I moved home to Long Island from Orlando. I had just gone through a tough breakup, so I was looking for something new to distract me…
READ STORY“After over two decades of leadership and management roles for corporate companies and then getting married and having my two girls…
READ STORY“I thought about helping first responders and veterans years ago. It’s been a dream of mine forever. I come from a family of military and first responders…
READ STORY“I was 15 when I came to this country from South Korea. In 1975, there were very few Asian people in Newburgh, New York, and I didn’t know American culture…
READ STORY“I was always shy, so I think musical theater was my way of expressing myself. I began when I was 5 with a little group of kids who did theater in a barn house…
READ STORY“I am a 15-year-old sophomore at Brentwood High School. I am in two organizations: Leaders of the Future and District 1 Youth Advisory Board…
READ STORY“My grandparents have been season-ticket holders since 1973. My parents are fans. My brother and I grew up going to games at Nassau Coliseum…
READ STORY“The first four years of Daniela’s life were full of memory-making and milestones, just like those of any other child…
READ STORY“I’ve been interested in octopuses since I was a kid, but now as an adult, I not only have them, I rescue them…
READ STORY“I always wanted a rabbit when I was a child, but my parents didn’t want the responsibility…
READ STORY“I’m an actor, singer and tap dancer. My big break was when I was 7 and shot the film ‘Prisoners’ with Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal…
READ STORY“When I was 11 years old, I got hit by a car and died on the spot…
READ STORY“Last year, I lost a lifelong friend unexpectedly and went through an immense amount of grief…
READ STORY“I’m the youngest of eight. My biological parents were not able to provide properly for us. That’s not a condemnation, just the reality of the situation…
WATCH NOW“Growing up in Liverpool, England, it was always football first for me – soccer here…
READ STORY“I’ve taught in higher education since 2003 and seen the transformative power of education. I also know the life-changing effect it had on me as a student…
READ STORY“I got into esports, or competitive, organized video gaming, about four years ago…
READ STORY“I’ve been making art since I was a child and discovered natural clay at Garvies Point…
READ STORY“I have always been a pet person. For the longest time, I was into big dogs only…
READ STORY“I’m the youngest of eight. My biological parents were not able to provide properly for us. That’s not a condemnation, just the reality of the situation…
WATCH NOW“I would write plays and movies in elementary school…
READ STORY“It’s funny how I got interested in gardening. My mother had a garden in the back of the house, but as a kid I was more interested in sports…
READ STORY“I would get onstage, and my voice would be quivering. I couldn’t breathe; my heart was pounding out of my chest…
READ STORY“I think I was always destined to end up in Hollywood. My childhood dream was to become an actress and/or comedian…
READ STORY“I was born in the Republic of Georgia and shuffled between orphanages until I was 4 and was adopted with my sister by our new family in Baltimore…
READ STORY“I’ve always been interested in history. When I was a teenager, I found myself really attracted to cemeteries…
READ STORY“I always loved the idea of the fading art on clothing, like the paint cracking after 20 years of it being washed…
READ STORY“Growing up, we had our challenges in a very impoverished area in Riverhead…
READ STORY“In January last year, I was pushing 300 pounds. My 2022 New Year’s resolution was to lose weight…
READ STORY“When I first started losing my vision, I had been a professor of English literature at LIU Post for over 50 years…
READ STORY“I’ve been dancing since I was 5. I grew up in the Bronx and went to the Paula Payson School of Dance…
READ STORY“When I was a kid, I didn’t really know I was adopted, but I felt like I was. It was a gut feeling…
READ STORY“I absolutely loved theater in high school, but I was never an actress. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t pretty enough to be an actress…
READ STORY“I was born in the Dominican Republic and came to America with my parents when I was 13 years old…
READ STORY“Our daughter Leah was diagnosed with scoliosis in 2004…
READ STORY“I grew up in Manhattan but spent most of my childhood summers in Montauk with my parents…
READ STORY“I was born and raised in Sweden and had never seen poverty there…
READ STORY“Growing up, I found it very difficult to relate to other children. I suffered from extreme separation anxiety…
READ STORY“I was working in higher education in career counseling when in 2010, I had a longing to return to the nonprofit community…
READ STORY“I-tri comes from my own experience. Even though I loved to swim and ride my bike as a kid, I never thought of those as athletic endeavors…
READ STORY“My journey with transplantation began when I was 13 years old. I made the first girls lacrosse team in Hicksville, and I was a competitive baton twirler, but I started to have these really severe stomach pains…
READ STORY“I grew up in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood when it was mostly Italian, Irish and Jewish. I was usually the only Black child in school…
READ STORY“My oldest brother, Marc, was 41. He was a surfer. He’d surf all the time, through the winter and the storms…
READ STORY“I’d already been playing basketball in Europe for 10 years before the WNBA started, but there were whisperings about something happening in America…
READ STORY“I go by many titles – I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend. I have had multiple sclerosis for 22 years…
READ STORY“A lot of times when we do paranormal house investigations, you have a family who’s really scared, and they have nobody to turn to…
READ STORY“I moved back to Long Island in 1986 with my kids after my divorce, when my son Scott was 4 and my daughter was 6…
READ STORY“Eileen’s Free Bodega started from a friend’s suggestion. I was volunteering in the South Bronx at a community fridge where people could get fresh food any time they needed…
READ STORY“An unlucky injury led me to a lucky thing: finding yoga. I got into yoga 12 years ago. I was playing lacrosse for Adelphi and I hurt myself after one of my practices…
READ STORY“I’m a licensed massage therapist and was treating a client who just had twins via Cesarean who was having back pain…
READ STORY“As a found-object artist, I like to work with things that have a history to them. I like the hunt. I’m always looking for interesting things…
READ STORY“I was born in Guatemala, and I was there until I was 9. I moved to the U.S. in 2001. There was a bunch more opportunities for us here in the U.S., so that’s why we migrated…
READ STORY“I dedicate my life to kindness and compassion; I met my husband, John, through mutual friends when we were teenagers and we stayed friends throughout our twenties…
READ STORY“I always wanted to help the populations who most needed it in this world…
READ STORY“I started cooking around age 5, fooling around in the kitchen where my parents lived in Queens…
READ STORY“I’ve loved cooking since I was 8. I would mix weird food combinations…
READ STORY“I suffer with social anxiety, but I think art helps that. I have three murals on the Long Beach boardwalk…
READ STORY“When I was about 7 or 8 years old, my best friend died. He and I were students at Ludlum Elementary School, which is now Barack Obama Elementary School, in Hempstead…
READ STORY“Always in search of exotic places and strange faces, I’ve had the good fortune to wander across six continents, from burning deserts to icy glacial mountains to the glories of the American West…
READ STORY“I was 15 when I came to this country from South Korea. In 1975, there were very few Asian people in Newburgh, New York, and I didn’t know American culture…
WATCH NOW“I always wanted to work in hockey some way. I was never a good player. I’m not a general manager kind of person. I just couldn’t get a job working in hockey. This was the next best thing…
READ STORY“I always loved the lighthouse. I loved fishing underneath it as a kid, surfcasting there, fishing in front of it with my dad, working on boats underneath it back when the Coast Guard ran it…
WATCH NOW“I was born and raised in the Village of Southampton. My parents came here in the late ’40s from North Carolina and Virginia as part of the great migration of Black people from the South who came here to work on the potato farms…
READ STORY“When I was 7, my mom took me to see ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ I had to get dressed up with a jacket and bowtie…
READ STORY“I watched Nickelodeon a lot when I was younger, but I never imagined that I would be on the channel, and everything happened by chance!…
READ STORY“The first time I remember not liking how I looked was when I was 7. I tried to eat healthier and join sports. In middle school, the self-hatred became overwhelming…
READ STORY“When I was a sophomore in high school, for a few weeks, I had been feeling not myself, in some pain and not sure what was going on…
READ STORY“I’ve had 11 surgeries on my left hip and I’m 47 years old. Initially, it started with a hip replacement gone bad on the left side…
READ STORY“Every year for Christmas, my mom got me the new Easy-Bake Oven. I never followed the directions on the little packets. Instead, I’d create my own cakes…
READ STORY“We met in our senior capstone class in college in 2019. I sat across from her on the first day. She thought I was annoying. I thought she was rude…
READ STORY“I found my life’s passion. I was in finance for many years, but it didn’t satisfy me. I always had an interest in psychiatry, so I took a job with The Jewish Association For Services For the Aged in Long Beach…
READ STORY“We were coming back from a party in early December 1996, and at the intersection of Glen Cove Road and Northern Boulevard there was a young woman driving eastbound on Northern Boulevard, and her car had stalled out completely…
READ STORY“I have always loved movies and dreamed of making them. I finally got inspired to actually make that dream a reality during COVID…
READ STORY“I struggle with learning disabilities still to this day. When I was younger, I was diagnosed with low tone and low muscle, which basically means I didn’t develop quickly…
READ STORY“Ever since I was 7 years old, I’ve been writing poetry…
READ STORY“After I graduated high school, I went right to work on the back of a garbage truck in Brooklyn…
READ STORY“I didn’t really pursue filmmaking until I was in a car accident and subsequently beat cancer…
READ STORY“I feel like it’s an honor to carry on the Fortunoff name. My grandparents worked hard to create their family business 100 years ago, and my parents spent their lives expanding it…
READ STORY