Faces of Long Island celebrates the uniqueness of everyday Long Islanders. In their own words, they tell us about their life experiences, challenges and triumphs. Newsday launched this social media journey into the human experience to shine a light on the diverse people of this wonderful place we call home.

‘We felt like sport was an avenue to get the young people to learn what it’s like to be part of a family, show them how to be respectful, work as a team.’

Huntington Station

“I went to Hofstra for college to play football. My dad was doing things in the community, and he became friends with the mayor of Hempstead, who was looking for someone to run a youth program. My dad volunteered me, and I took a liking to it. It was something that after a couple of times of doing it I felt like that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life. I realized that when I was in college.

“I started doing stuff with some of the people in the community, and then weekends turned into a month over the summer, and then the following year it just became something that I started doing myself. I got some of my friends in the community to partner with me, and we started a youth program in 2000. To this day we call it Young Leaders. It started off with kids who play football and basketball. We started with the Huntington Bulldogs football league when the kids were around 6. We did community service events with them, like cleaning up the streets and some of the seniors’ yards.

“As they got into middle and high school, we branched out so that other kids that didn’t play sports could be a part of it. We felt like sport was an avenue to get the young people to learn what it’s like to be part of a family, show them how to be respectful, work as a team. But we wanted other kids who weren’t athletes to have that same feeling, so we started opening up for kids that didn’t play sports, and it grew. It expanded to not just kids in Huntington Station, but also Greenlawn, Cold Spring Harbor, Half Hollow Hills and Wyandanch. We started bringing all the kids together, and we did a beautification of Wyandanch High School. A bus company donated the buses, and we took all the kids there, and Home Depot gave us over $10,000 worth of paint, flowers and plants. It was all about the kids all working together.

“I saw all the teams come together, and coaches from other teams came and helped out. We saw that we really, really had something that was helping some of these kids stay off the streets, helping them get into college. Then we started doing banquets and raising scholarship money for the kids. We gave out close to $10,000 worth of scholarships every year for the kids.”

If you’re helping kids, you want to leave yourself open to everything because I don’t work with just one type or a particular group of kids.

“My friends and I do this as fathers and community activists. But we realized when you work with kids, you also have to work with their families. How do we help their parents out? Then it became helping some parents find jobs or go back to school. It prepared me for this pandemic. It was an easy transition when we saw that people were not able to get food. I’m good at networking, bringing people together. With Project Hope, we were able to donate $5 million worth of food for the community in the two years of the pandemic. Over the years, I also started using music to help some of the kids. I opened up a studio and used that to help some kids who were interested in music. I also coach football, basketball and track.

“I do anti-bias stuff also. If you’re helping kids, you want to leave yourself open to everything because I don’t work with just one type or a particular group of kids. I leave room for everyone, for every type of kid, because every kid, even though we have different backgrounds, ethnic groups, different colors, we’re kind of the same. I want to leave myself open for whatever they want to do. Two young people came to me last year to put together an anti-bias concert. They asked me if I could help them, and I said absolutely. I gave them a template, and I got sponsors.

“They got artists to perform, and we got other agencies involved in it with the Tri CYA and the Anti-Bias Task Force. It was a success and something those kids will never forget. So, that’s what keeps me going, when they see that they can accomplish something. Over the years, I’ve worked with thousands of kids. But the thing is, I never get a chance to live in a moment. I consider every kid at risk. It’s a lot of decision-making that makes a difference for so many kids. I’m always thinking of different ways how I can help and do things in the community.

“I love doing what I do, and I’ll continue to do it, but even after helping someone, it still doesn’t stop me from worrying about how am I going to help the next people? To this day, I’m always thinking about what am I going to do next? Or if someone called me, ‘OK, how am I going to help you?’ I never say no because no one ever said no to me.”

Interviewed by Liza Burby

‘I think it’s important to say that, to find our calling and purpose, we must change our mentality and lifestyle to match our dreams.’

Patchogue

“I was born in the U.S., but most of my family came here from Ecuador. When I was a teen, on weekends my uncle would take me to wait with undocumented immigrants in Farmingville looking for work. When someone came for workers, we’d go over, and I had an advantage because often they wanted bilingual speakers who could help with translating. It taught me how to work in any weather and with my hands, no matter how hard.

“After high school, I learned to detail cars and ended up getting a job at a car dealership. I also graduated from Suffolk Community College with an AA in criminal justice and wanted to join the NYPD, but knew that was unlikely as I got arrested at age 18. I was driving over 100 mph on Sunrise Highway; I saw police and reacted in the worst possible way. I thought I could lose them, but ended up sliding and getting stuck in a snowbank. I spent a night in jail, got community service and a year of probation. I had still hoped to become an officer and started the procedures after college at 21, but knew I might need a plan B, so I started a car-detailing side hustle.

I started hiring a young staff, and now my business is also a way to teach and help others.

“As expected, I was disqualified from the police, but then I was laid off from the dealership. I was stressing, but then started thinking about what I saw as a laborer, people working so hard, but not getting anywhere. That inspired me to create a business. To build on my side detailing work, I leased a space, then moved to a better location. I started using social media to get customers, business cards with QR scan codes and driving my own car around neighborhoods so people can see a demo of what I can do. I had to teach myself to do these kinds of things. I started hiring a young staff, and now my business is also a way to teach and help others.

“We’ve become a team. My employees all have plans of their own, but we have a mutual understanding to help me now, and I’ll help them get there. I get contacted a lot by people cheering me on for being so focused at age 25, even asking me for advice. I think it’s important to say that, to find our calling and purpose, we must change our mentality and lifestyle to match our dreams. And once we find our passion, it makes work no longer feel like work.”

Interviewed by Ian J. Stark

‘There’s that moment when you look through your camera and there’s a jolt of adrenaline.’

Mastic

“I started shooting 35 mm film when I was in 10th grade. I was on varsity cheerleading, and I dealt with a sexual assault. That shattered my whole world, my identity. So, I leaned into the other side of me, the creative side. I quit cheerleading and pursued art. I was in the photo room before school, after school. My teacher would let me come; she knew it was a safe place for me.

“I was able to recreate myself as I was creating my art. A lot of artists use their tragedy and their pain for something beautiful. My mom found my first camera on eBay for $70, a Canon Rebel, a ’90s film camera, and someone stole it out of my locker.

“Now I have a Canon AE-1, which was my friend’s uncle’s from the ’80s. Photography gave me a reason to go outside and look around outside myself, sort of meditatively. I started taking my time looking at things closely. Film is a more artistic experience than digital. Technology takes a lot away from us. When you shoot digital, you don’t have to know the camera as well.

“I just appreciate taking my time with photos and investing in my film. It’s always a surprise getting the film back after being developed. In three weeks, you don’t remember you took a random photo of this thing you walked past.

“I don’t remember the photos I take, and that’s one of my favorite parts. It’s cool, those little moments you get to experience again. With film, you don’t have a lot of chances to get things right. I think, ‘I hope these came out well; I tried my best. Then you get them back, and they’re stunning or terrible, but you’re happy regardless because you’re learning.

“When I take a photo, there’s a reason for each one, and I try to capture things that are beautiful and interesting. I like to shoot my friends. They and I struggle with self-image, so when I can look at them in a moment and capture them, that’s special because they’re stunning. I like giving them photos of themselves so they can see themselves the way I see them.

“There’s that moment when you look through your camera, and there’s a jolt of adrenaline. You’re capturing something so specific that no one else will ever capture. It’s vulnerable to share because these are my moments; this is my life.”

Interviewed by Rachel O’Brien – Morano

‘My focus was always to get more people involved, kids especially, because if they’re not interested in history, then the next generation is just going to forget about it.’

Mattituck

“I’ve been interested in history pretty much all my life. I was a docent during the bicentennial at the Old House and Schoolhouse. Then I got sidetracked with college and a career.

“Before I retired, I joined the Mattituck-Laurel Historical Society as a volunteer and became the curator and collections manager there. I was donating a family quilt. It was a significant item from the 1870s with their names and place names; they were kind of founders of Mattituck.

“When I went to donate it, the vice president took me through the Tuthill House, built in 1799 by Jesse Tuthill, and added on by his son Ira in 1841, their main museum. Because of my intense interest in history, I knew more about the items in the house than she did, and she invited me to be the curator because they had recently lost theirs and they needed someone.

“When I retired in 2020, I was able to give a lot more time to the society, and I really took to it. My focus was always to get more people involved, kids especially, because if they’re not interested in history, then the next generation is just going to forget about it.

“I was planning on not working but when this job came up to be executive director of Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Council. I applied for it and got it based in my experience with Mattituck. The council owns the Cutchogue Village Green. On the green is one of the oldest houses in the U.S. linked to the Revolutionary War.

“There are multiple buildings — an old schoolhouse from the 1800s, another home, a barn with agricultural equipment and a carriage house.

“One of the ways to promote the Cutchogue council is to tell the stories of the properties on the Village Green. I wanted to make them come to life, so I decided to dress in period clothes. My brother Rory MacNish is a professional photographer, so we did a photo shoot, and I picked a few out and shared them on Facebook.

“We’re a nonprofit, and COVID dealt a blow. Board members and volunteers fell to the wayside. I’m trying to make a comeback to tell everyone that we’re still here, and we’re still part of the community. And we’re using it to be more inclusive with the stories that we tell and connect more with the community.”

Interviewed by Rachel O’Brien – Morano

‘I hope to expand the tours to younger groups, such as high school students, so they can understand our Long Island history and its significance.’

Sea Cliff

“I found I needed to fill some of that extra time I had after I finished my stint as mayor of Sea Cliff. I became a tour guide. A few years back, I traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, and took a historic walking tour. I realized that Sea Cliff would be a wonderful place to guide tours.

“When I was conducting law classes for the resident seniors at the Atria assisted living facility in Glen Cove, I noticed that they had their own bus, so I asked the executive director, Diane Ziems, if I could give her residents a bus tour of Sea Cliff. They were so enthusiastic that they requested more tours! That got the ball rolling.

“I started giving tours to seniors in Sea Cliff. Each has its own unique story. All tours follow historic routes where landmarks and their history are discussed.

There seems to be a real camaraderie among the passengers … I’m so happy to be a tour guide.

“Besides the ‘Historic Sea Cliff’ tour, I now have the following trips, too: ‘George Washington’s Culper Spy Ring Tour Along Historic 25A’; ‘Sagamore Hill/Theodore Roosevelt Tour’ and ‘Robert Moses/Jones Beach Tour,’ and last but not least, a ‘Historic Roslyn & Great Neck Tour.’

“During this last excursion, one time I couldn’t find the house where the author F. Scott Fitzgerald once lived. I asked a few locals, and then it hit me: They didn’t have a clue what I was talking about! Happily, eventually, I was able to locate it.

“These tours are free with a nominal fee for a bag lunch. My experiences have been beyond a time-filler. Not only have I expanded my own knowledge on different historical subjects with research and exploring, but I have had the good fortune of meeting wonderful seniors — a group of which I am a member — who have had their own stories to tell. There seems to be a real camaraderie among the passengers. I have seen some holding hands as I’m lecturing on the subject. I’m so happy to be a tour guide.

“I hope to expand the tours to younger groups, such as high school students, so they can understand our Long Island history and its significance.”

Interviewed by Saul Schachter

‘My life’s work is to stop the stigma of epilepsy.’

Massapequa Park

“They thought I had meningitis. They gave me last rites, told my family I was going to die, but I didn’t. A few months later, I went to see a neurologist, and he told me I was having seizures. I went to see an epileptologist, and they discovered I was having 100 seizures a week on 28 pills a day.

“They said, it’s time to be evaluated for brain surgery. It was very scary for me and my family. My kids were only 5 and 11 at the time. I did a year of evaluation and discovered I was a candidate.

“The first step of brain surgery was grids, and I had a blood clot at that point. I had to be rushed back into surgery, take the grids out, go home for two months, wait for the clots to dissipate. Then I did a resection; so I have no right brain. The seizures stopped, and I was doing great.

“Four years later, I was working all the time and was so sick, but no one could diagnose me. It was a feeling of car sickness. After about two spinal taps, two cases of Bell’s palsy, they discovered I had late-stage Lyme disease.

I had to have part of my brain removed because not enough money is put into epilepsy research and treatment.

“I did 30 days of doxycycline and 30 days of IV antibiotics, but it never fully went away. I have arthritis in every joint, and all the antibiotics destroyed my teeth. This was in 2013.

“In 2018, my dog started doing nose-to-nose with me and would snarl, and I was afraid she was telling me I was having a brain bleed. Not even two weeks later, a mass formed on the side of my neck. I was then diagnosed with large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“I did six rounds of chemo, and I’m in remission now. I was doing a lot of crying. Like why me? I’ve been sick since I was 18 months old, on and off.

“I lost my sister-in-law in 9/11. She was in the North Tower. And I was very affected by her shoes by the door because she was expecting to come home that day. And I came to the realization that she had no choice. I have a choice, so I choose to fight. I trained to become a peer counselor, and I counsel others with epilepsy and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“I spoke to the House [of Representatives] about the underfunding of epilepsy. It is kind of barbaric. I had to have part of my brain removed because not enough money is put into epilepsy research and treatment. My life’s work is to stop the stigma of epilepsy.”

Interviewed by Melanie Gulbas

‘I love connecting with nature. It’s seeing the magic of a single seed grow into a beautiful plant whose fruits will feed our community.’

Brentwood

“My family emigrated from Greece in 1982 and brought the love of animals and earth with them. My dad had 17 goats and a large garden in Ronkonkoma that would eventually become ‘Thera Farms.’ In my early twenties, I expanded the garden into a small farm, opened a farm stand and started attending farmers markets.

“Sadly, we were landlocked in Ronkonkoma, with only 2.6 acres. But I was connected to the Peconic Land Trust and the Sisters of St. Joseph, who leased us land in Brentwood. Now we’re up to 18 acres and have the full support of the community behind us. It’s really a special place. My wife, Heather, was part of the community when I first met her. I was smitten from day one. She was a sister of St. Joseph. She is a beautiful person with a love of people and nature like I’ve never seen. She tried to hide it at first, but seeing me work the land on my tractors eventually won her over, and now we’ve been married five years and have two beautiful daughters.

People come to the farm and connect with how their food is grown.

“Heather manages the Garden Ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph. It’s an educational space for the community at large. There are community garden plots, programs for kids, prayer sessions, goats, chickens, rabbits, honey bees, and they donate what they grow to the community. Selling what we grow right on the farm at our stand helps keep our prices low. We have no transport costs and very little food waste. What doesn’t get sold gets donated to numerous charities, the biggest being Island Harvest. I believe we donated over 4,000 pounds of food in 2021. We also provide a safe place for people to come relax and enjoy nature. People come to the farm and connect with how their food is grown. You can sit in the shade and forget how congested this island is. It’s a hidden gem in the middle of the Island. People that find us tend to keep coming back.

“I love connecting with nature. It’s seeing the magic of a single seed grow into a beautiful plant whose fruits will feed our community. It’s seeing the smile of the people that shop at the stand. It’s hearing those tractors fire up and the symphony of the rocks scraping the plow blade. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Interviewed by Saul Schachter

‘Joining the circus at all was just chance.’

Glen Head

“I went on to college — and joined the circus. I grew up in Glen Head, was an honors student in high school, sang in the chorus, studied ballet, performed in the plays. Ordinary, really.

“Other than climbing trees long past childhood, there wasn’t much to suggest I’d have a future working in the air. Joining the circus at all was just chance. My sophomore year at college, an actor friend spotted an audition notice for dancers for Ringling Brothers circus. He jokingly dared me to do it. The morning of the tryouts, I cut my classes — and made the cut.

“I started out just dancing in the big production numbers. Three years later, I was performing high off the ground in a ‘Spanish web’ display and had fallen in love with a Romanian acrobat. Together, we created our own aerial acts, bought a truck and a trailer home, and crisscrossed the country with smaller circuses.

Was I scared? The answer is — no, but I should have been!

“I hung only by my heels from a trapeze, wearing a homemade sequined bikini costume. I learned to spin very fast by my neck in a swivel loop, going faster when I pulled in my arms, just like an ice skater. Later, I did the same spin hanging by my teeth — the ‘iron jaw,’ it’s called. Yes, it hurt.

“I spent a year being the ‘elephant girl’ for the marvelous Woodcock performing elephants, riding them and doing tricks like standing on top of their head. The biggest applause came as I was carried around upside down by my knee wedged into the elephant’s mouth. It was heady and exciting and very poorly paid.

“Was I scared? The answer is — no, but I should have been! That level of risk became my new normal in the circus. And I was young and confident enough that I didn’t have a sense of my own mortality. I’m very lucky I was never seriously injured because — this horrifies me now — all those years I was 20 feet in the air, I didn’t have any health insurance.

“After 10 years of performing, I knew I wanted more security than that life could provide. I got a desk job, married a software developer and raised a family. Ordinary, really. Except that when my husband suggested moving us all to East Africa, guess who thought that sounded like a cool adventure? Well, at least, when I got malaria, we had health insurance!”

Interviewed by Saul Schachter

‘I’m productive and make the most out of my time, so if anyone can handle owning a company and be a doctor at the same time, it’s me.’

Massapequa

“My whole life, my family’s been in and out of hospitals: my grandma, aunt, grandpa, great grandpa and great grandma all had medical issues. The early years of my life felt like I lived outside the hospital on my bicycle.

“I looked up to the doctors who were helping my family. I wanted to be like them and started college to become a doctor. However, in 2020, my second year, COVID happened. School slowed down as things went online, so I figured, let me just start my business.

“The idea came to me during the summer of 2019. I was doing construction and waterproofing basements. I was lugging stuff, getting covered in paint, throwing out dead rats; I hated it. The whole time, I was thinking about being on the water.

“I grew up fishing and boating, and that’s my passion. I realized there’s not a lot of boat rental companies on L.I., and since not everyone can afford to own a boat, my plan was to make it easier for people to enjoy the water like I do. I did construction hoping to learn a trade, but just ending up learning it wasn’t for me.

Despite all that happened during COVID, I made the best of it.

“The next summer, I bought an existing boat rental company. I also had been selling real estate at that time; my parents work in real estate and I got my license when I was 18. Everybody came in from the city during COVID to buy houses; it was crazy, with houses selling for thousands over asking prices.

“I used the money made from selling houses to buy the boat rental company, and the day the marinas reopened from COVID, I put a down payment on a boat, also from money made from selling houses.

“Despite all that happened during COVID, I made the best of it. I’m back in school I’m taking the MCAT on June 17, and if it goes well, I can then start with med school applications.

“I still also help my mom sell houses whenever I’m not studying or working on the boat business. I don’t know how much time I’ll have in med school to work on my boating business, but I’m training people to hold it down for me

“But even if I become a doctor, I can’t imagine saying, ‘Forget about the boat rentals.’ I’m productive and make the most out of my time, so if anyone can handle owning a company and be a doctor at the same time, it’s me.”

Interviewed by Ian J. Stark

‘My early years, I was in a setting that is sometimes referred to as the “sink or swim.” You have to figure it out yourself, how to pick up the language.’

Brentwood

“My dad was a teacher in El Salvador. It was during the civil war in the 1980s, when teachers were often a target for their ideas, that he emigrated to the U.S., and my mother joined him.

“My siblings and I stayed with my grandmother. In order to go to school, my older brother and I would have had to leave our town to go to the capitol.

“My parents decided my mother would come back for us, and we’d move here instead. It was a tough journey. We did it by land with a coyote, a guide, and we crossed the border. I was 12.

“When we were close to Rio Grande, the coyote abandoned us. We were a big group, including my four siblings, my mom and my aunt. Eventually, my brave aunt found help, and we crossed the river.

“We made it here. I started fifth grade in Westbury. I didn’t speak English, and they didn’t have English as a New Language — ENL. I had to take a bus from my school to another school once or twice a week for one or two periods for ENL class.

“During the rest of the day, I was basically just sitting, not understanding anything that was going on in the classroom. I remember that my teacher would always smile, and she even gave me bags of clothes to take home.

“I still have two turtlenecks she gave me. I remember her changing my grade on a test so I would feel better. I would just copy without knowing what I was copying.

“Nevertheless, I developed a love for books. In El Salvador, we learned to read with one book, ‘El Silabario.’ So, when I saw all these books, I collected them, but I wasn’t able to read them. I was in darkness. I kept one book to this day, ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ which I haven’t read, as a memory of the books that I used to collect and was not be able to read.

“My early years, I was in a setting that is sometimes referred to as the ‘sink or swim.’ You have to figure it out yourself, how to pick up the language. Middle school got a little better. I had a great ENL teacher, but when I got to high school, I had a teacher who saw a lot of the gaps in my education.

“She spent a lot of time with me one-on-one. She really helped me see where I needed to improve. I also took Spanish classes for native speakers. It was a great feeling of success learning in a language I was fluent in.

My journey has certainly helped me to better help others.

“When I entered college, I had to work on my own. I spent hours in the library learning what I could’ve learned while my time was just wasted because I couldn’t understand the language it was being taught in. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher.

“I taught Sunday school at my church, Iglesia Evangélica Apóstoles y Profetas, in Westbury from the age of 14. When I got to college, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to go into teaching because I felt I wasn’t strong enough in English.

“I met with a professor at SUNY Old Westbury who told me about bilingual education. I couldn’t believe there was such a thing. I started investigating what it meant, how it helps students who come from other countries who don’t speak English, how bilingual programs give them the opportunity to use their home language to learn in different subjects while they’re acquiring English. Bilingual education presented a different way of doing things than my experience.

“When I did my student teaching, I came back to my old district, which now had bilingual education at the elementary level. I did my observations here and volunteered in the after-school program. When I graduated, I applied to my hometown. I was really happy to be back. I started as a bilingual teacher in 1998 in a transitional bilingual program. I taught the dual language program while doing my masters in reading at Queens College.

“Eventually, I got my doctorate. I’m a bilingual reading teacher working with first- to fifth-graders, mainly in their home language. I love it! One of my passions is to help children learn to read, but what I love most is helping them develop a passion for learning.

“I see myself in these students. I often let them know, ‘You can make it. You just need to really put in an effort.’ I was blessed that I had an education back home and that my parents were on top of us going to school. That was one of their major reasons for coming here, for a better education and safety.

“Whenever we get new students, I’m the one to meet with them and the parents. I love being able to start off the conversation with, ‘I’m from Salvador, too.’ My journey has certainly helped me to better help others.”

Interviewed by Liza Burby