‘I was a 14-year-old girl with $10,000 to $15,000 worth of gold in my backpack.’

Kings Park

“When I was a girl, my dad owned a jewelry- and watch-repair shop in Brentwood. Gold was big then. He would buy any scrap gold people would want to get rid of, melt it down, and I would take these little bricks of gold with me on the train to Penn Station.

“I was a 14-year-old girl with $10,000 to $15,000 worth of gold in my backpack. I would go into the Diamond District, where everybody knew who I was, sell the gold, and get back on the train with thousands in cash in my little bookbag.

“Part of me is still grounded in that humble Brentwood shop where I learned everything I know about business. I had immigrated with my mother from Honduras to the United States when I was 6 and a half years old. When we landed at LaGuardia Airport, coming from a Third World country, I was starstruck, thinking the United States would be all castles in the sand.

“My dad, who was already living on Long Island, bought the Brentwood house where I grew up. I didn’t play sports or do extracurricular activities after school; I was my dad’s gofer. I learned street smarts, negotiation and my work ethic from him.

“Though successful, he was very mentally abusive, typical macho. The concept of a business owner in my father’s eyes meant sacrificing everything for the sake of a buck.

“I graduated from Brentwood High School at age 16; my guidance counselor had told me it couldn’t be done. I took additional summer school and school courses to graduate as a junior. I was studying business management. Then, I decided college wasn’t for me. I dropped out and went to massage school, graduating at age 17.

“I started my career as a massage therapist in 2002 in Florida, but my heart is in New York, where I returned in 2007. I was 22 and seven months pregnant. Everybody was saying that having a child when I was so young would interfere with my goals. But my first son, born in January 2008, became my biggest motivation.

“Four months after he was born, I opened my practice in Kings Park. I became a licensed esthetician a year later. I evolved the concept of a spa that is less like a factory, more like a family. We grew and grew. Then, five years ago, I almost lost everything when my livelihood and business were seriously threatened.”

After years of soul searching, I had to self-heal for my own sanity.

“I met my sons’ father when I was 17. We moved in together when I was 21. He was a hard worker – he owned an auto shop – but also a tortured soul and brought those demons into our relationship. First it was mental and verbal abuse, then it got physical.

“Initially, I thought, no matter what, he was my boyfriend, we had two boys together. By the beginning of eight years together, I asked him to go. He had to be physically removed by the police.

“Then he began stalking and harassing me. It got so bad I tried to commit suicide. I was 29 at the time, and I wasn’t going down without a fight. I sent my kids to live with family in Honduras. I told my clientele I had to leave, but that I’d keep coming back to New York to see them.

“I packed my car and drove to California. I found a place for us, brought my kids back to live with me, and traveled back and forth between New York and L.A., where I also built up a good reputation. One of my clients is a former U.S. ambassador.

“I specialize in Swedish, Ashiatsu and yoga Thai massage. When the pandemic hit, I was overbooked because everybody was so stressed. I got a bigger space in downtown L.A., about 1,000 square feet with single and couples massage rooms, break room and reception-retail area.

“As a woman and single mother, after years of soul searching, I decided I had to self-heal for my own sanity. Part of that was to allow my sons to also partake in that self-healing and create closure for them with their dad.

“In December, we met in a public space, and they spent four hours together. I’ve never seen my children so happy. Pursuing a doctorate in natural medicine, I’m learning how our emotions can make us sick if we don’t let go of resentment.

“I’ve employed a few women while they were going through spousal abuse, and because of my own experience, I was able to help them to navigate their exit out of their situation. As a survivor, it’s important to be the voice for other women who didn’t survive.”

Interviewed by Jim Merritt

‘We saw other children living in the hospital and realized theirs was a world we knew nothing about until we were in it.’

Hauppauge

“In 1989, my wife, Angie, was pregnant with our second child, and, unfortunately, at birth there was a major accident. When my daughter Angela was born, she had lost a lot of blood and was oxygen deprived, suffering severe brain damage, which left her very medically frail. She was transferred to another hospital and was there for six months. Angela was gorgeous, with beautiful brown eyes.

“Midway through her life, she stabilized to a point where we could get her off oxygen support and even take her out in front of the hospital. One of my favorite photos shows her and my son sitting on the lawn.

No longer would parents have to leave Long Island to see their kids.

“At that time, home care services were not great for children requiring long-term medical support, and there were few options in the area for rehab or long-term care. Then I found the Hospital for Special Care in New Britain, Connecticut. We visited, and it ended up being our only reasonable alternative, so we transferred Angela there. We would drive back and forth to visit her from Long Island.

“We saw other children living in the hospital and realized theirs was a world we knew nothing about until we were in it. We started advocating to politicians on a federal and local level, writing letters and calling every assemblyperson and state senator on Long Island, saying this is a bigger issue than people understand.

“Around that time, a researcher at the state Department of Health completed a report showing how many kids were stuck in hospitals throughout New York State. I reached out and got permission to use his data to make the public aware of this population — we used the term, ‘medically fragile children’ — and held two or three conferences, workshops and fairs a year for five years to help educate the community about these children.

“Angela made it to her first birthday before she passed. I was working in Garden City when I got the call from my wife that Angela was rapidly failing. On the way to the hospital, our car broke down and we arrived too late.

“After her passing, I was lost as a parent. It was just devastating, and the lack of services for children like Angela made the situation even worse. We had started this advocacy, but there was a brief moment when I wasn’t sure whether I could go on.

““Our daughter, Angela died in 1990, about a month after her first birthday, having lived all her life in a hospital. We decided that the best way to continue our relationship with her was to find a nonprofit organization to assist families caring for children with special health care needs.

“As part of my advocacy, I spoke to legislators and held workshops for the New York State Department of Health and the state Office for People With Developmental Disabilities.

“A state official told us, ‘If you’re not getting anybody to pick up these services, why don’t you do it?’ We applied for and received a small state grant to cover unreimbursed expenses for parents bringing children home.

“Over the next six years, I continued speaking anywhere I could to raise awareness. At a legislative breakfast, Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg of Long Beach was in the audience. He said, ‘We’re going to make this work for you.’

“By the time funding was approved in the New York State budget, we had affiliated with Independent Group Home Living, an agency operating adult homes for individuals with developmental disabilities.

“We began planning the first group home in East Moriches. As a parent starting from scratch, my research brought me to multiple Northeastern states to see what other people had done. I didn’t want an institutional setting. I wanted something warm and homelike, like any other home except with 24-hour nursing, with oxygen hookups disguised in rooms decorated like a home environment. No longer would parents have to leave Long Island to see their kids.

“It took 10 years from Angela’s birth to open that first home in East Moriches. Five years later, we opened a second home in Smithtown. The most recent one is in Stony Brook, close to Stony Brook Medicine, to accommodate children with severe medical issues who need ventilator support and home visits from pediatricians and pulmonologists.

“In its 30th year, Angela’s House assists hundreds of kids, children with developmental disabilities and health problems, children injured in accidents, children with rare diseases. Angela’s House allows them to live beyond the expectations of their diseases and have the most fulfilling life they can lead.”

Interviewed by Jim Merritt

‘Why do I do this? To thank the veterans and to listen to their stories.’

Glen Cove

“I was always curious about my dad’s service in World War II. My late father, Paul Clare, suffered from PTSD, having nightmares and often screaming his friend Jay’s name. In 2006, I was recovering from shoulder surgery, had time on my hands, decided to research my dad. I remembered he had been in the Battle of the Bulge and served in the 8th Armored Division. I immediately found 8th-armored.org, and knew I would literally be going places.

“I found the website for Dad’s division and posted a note on its bulletin board. Turns out the site was started by a man in Dad’s company. He put me in contact with Leonard Justofin from my father’s squad, and we spoke over an hour on the phone. Soon, I drove three hours to his house in Sugarloaf, PA., to meet him. We became great friends, and when he died, I was asked by the family to be one of his pallbearers.

I meet families, find information of their loved ones, report back to the families.

“In 2010, I flew to California to find the gravesite of my namesake, my Uncle Dave, who died in a plane crash during WWII. Found a Sgt. Albert Meyer, who was the last man to see my Uncle Dave. When I called him, he nearly dropped his phone. Said he had been waiting 55 years to talk to a family member of Uncle Dave! We went to the crash site — very emotional day.

“That year, I started going overseas. Been to Europe 10 times; this year will be No. 11. I’ve been to Normandy three times and have visited all five D-Day beaches. I’ve met mostly British veterans, some Canadian and Australian. Those were on my Normandy visits, correlated to the D-Day anniversary in early June.

“I meet families, find information of their loved ones, report back to the families. I always look forward to visiting Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten, where more than 8,200 soldiers are buried. Another 1,722 names are memorialized on the Wall of the Missing.

“Every time something happens, I call it a ‘Margraten miracle.’ I meet someone or see something that feels like I am being guided by Dad and his buddies. There are 11 of my father’s friends — including his best buddy — that were killed there in direct combat.

“Why do I do this? To thank the veterans and to listen to their stories. To let them know their buddies who died wouldn’t be forgotten.”

Interviewed by Saul Schachter

‘Being more observant helps me see how others my age can do what’s right.’

East Meadow

“I love learning about the government and the way our country works. I was taking a law class when I was in the ninth grade. My teacher knew the person running the Nassau County Peer Diversion Court. I waited a few months after applying, and then found out I was accepted to be a part of it! The program is run for kids under 18 at the actual Hempstead courts through the Nassau County Probation Court. We learned how to become advocates for the kids that come through the program because they know what they did is wrong and they’re trying to learn from their mistakes.

If teenagers are considering joining a program like this, I would tell them to just go for it.

“We don’t see any violent cases that have weapons; maybe somebody stole something little and they were caught, or they might have gotten in a small fight. We don’t prove guilt or innocence. After their trials, they get to come back, sit on the jury, listen to other people’s cases and help themselves learn from it. Sometimes they get 30 hours of community service, or they might have to write letters of apology. The punishments are really just ways for them to learn from their mistakes.

“The program is very exciting, and I have learned a lot from doing it. I love to help people, and it’s really beneficial to see these kids come out better people. They see how to do the right thing. I feel like I have personally become a better person because of being an advocate, too. Now I pay attention to more things around me. Being more observant helps me see how others my age can do what’s right.

“I go to East Meadow High School, but the advocates are from all over Nassau County. The respondents are also from all over Nassau County. Once you graduate from the program as an advocate, you can even come back to see cases, and you can learn more about how the system works. I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up, but now I know I definitely want to be in the law field, maybe as a judge or an attorney. If teenagers are considering joining a program like this, I would tell them to just go for it. When I joined, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it, but now, after doing it a number of months, I really love it.”

Interviewed by Iris Wiener

‘My sister, she is very resilient; me, I just had an extra kidney. For me, it’s a helpless situation, but clearly it’s worse for her.’

Merrick

“This is really my sister’s story, but I’m telling it; it’s like a donor’s narrative. She has a super rare autoimmune disease called IgA nephropathy. We grew up in Jericho. She first got sick when she was 5, and then at 15 was in the hospital for over a month. She had a normal college life, but in 2008 her problems flared up again, and she really started to go downhill. Her kidney function went down, and [she] was told she’d need a transplant. My mom got tested to be a donor first, because who wants their kid to donate a kidney if they don’t have to? But, as she’s an old-school type and never went to doctors, when they gave her a mammogram, it turned out she had breast cancer. They caught it early, and she’s been in remission since, but it was a blessing and a curse: She otherwise would have never gotten a mammogram, but when you have cancer, you can’t donate.

“I was next in line, and I was a match. I donated. I was in my 20s, and it really wasn’t hard on me. I have just a teeny scar, and I was walking around the neighborhood the next day after the surgery. My one kidney compensates well for both. She went on to have two kids and become a special needs teacher. She lives in Wantagh, I live in Merrick. Last Easter [2021], however, she developed a crazy fever that wouldn’t go down, and [she] was hospitalized. The doctors said she had a sepsis, which for someone with a kidney infection is a really big deal. Her kidney function went down, way down, fast. This is a person who eats right, walks every day. But about six months later, she was put on the transplant list. Now we have no one to donate to her in our family; my husband had thyroid cancer. We created a website and made a social media page to find a donor, and while a lot of people responded, they weren’t blood matches.

“Her kidney function is now at 15 percent and is close to needing dialysis. Getting a transplant when you’re on dialysis is not as healthy, so you want to get one before. And for a mother of two kids to be on dialysis three days a week, just imagine that; so we are really trying to get someone to donate before we get to that point. We don’t know when things could drop, so we have to get something going.”

She has to be the person who’s like, ‘Ugh, I’m the person who needs this to live … Thank you.’ It’s a terrible feeling.

“We’re trying to get people who aren’t blood matches to take part in a ‘kidney swap’ or a ‘kidney chain,’ where people donate to somebody else and then bring someone else in, and my sister would get prioritized for the next kidney that’s a match. That’s lifesaving for more than just my sister. She’s on a lot of medications, which can really mess up your body while trying to sustain her functions. Her legs get swollen, so it’s hard to walk, but she keeps pushing herself.

“She’s a very proud person, living with illness for most of her life. She’s very strong. She hates that I’m basically begging online for a kidney, but I have no shame. I’m like, ‘Let’s just do this, who cares?’ I don’t ever want her to feel guilty about getting a kidney from me. I don’t care at all, but sometimes I feel like she feels that way. But I don’t feel bad at all. I really don’t. There is an unfair power dynamic, and it sucks if the person on the lower end, the recipient, is a person who’s really strong. She has to be the person who’s like, ‘Ugh, I’m the person who needs this to live … Thank you.’ It’s a terrible feeling. I feel so much for her because of that. That she has to feel that way. It’s an indignity. You have to swallow everything, swallow your pride just to be able to live a normal life. No one should have to do that.

“My sister, she is very resilient; me, I just had an extra kidney. For me, it’s a helpless situation, but clearly it’s worse for her. People say, ‘You’re amazing. You donated a kidney.’ But she’s my sister. I had to do it; there wasn’t a choice. All I can do now is get the word out. The state list is like 10 years long, so we need to figure this out. People need to sign their licenses. People need to register to donate. Some think it won’t happen to them, but as more people are getting diabetes, they’re going to need kidneys. As a family member of someone who needs a transplant, you get like, ‘Why aren’t more people doing this?’ My sister’s kids are 10 and 7, and they need their mom.”

To be screened to donate a kidney to Helena, please call Northwell Manhasset at 516-562-0550 or go to helphelena.com to find out more.

Interviewed by Ian J. Stark

‘It feels good to have your own business and be able to create your own hours and do things on your terms rather than for somebody else all the time.’

Brentwood

“We got inspiration from Instagram to start this particular business. We saw an ad for the machine that we use called the Glowforge. They were showing how you can engrave on a laptop, on a phone case…even on macaroons. We’re like, ‘This is a Cricut on crack. This is cool!’ We decided we have to get this and start a business together. We just have this entrepreneurial mindset because our parents were entrepreneurs. So, we got the machine. We’re always good with gifting things, but a creative personal gift is always that much better. And it’s more fun to give.

“We’ve always done those kinds of gifts and now this kind of took it up another notch. So, that’s how we started, and it’s pretty much been endless since. Instagram is where we began and had people DM us for anything custom that they were thinking of. And we recently opened up the Etsy store. It feels good to have your own business and be able to create your own hours and do things on your terms rather than for somebody else all the time. You put the hours in and it doesn’t always feel like hard work.

If your heart is feeling like you’re not in the workspace that you need to be, try different things.

“It’s so much better than working with coworkers. We have our fun banter. We love to sing so sometimes we’ll have music on while we’re doing our projects. We did a fair in the Islip town hall in 2019 and somebody passing by said, ‘I’ve been watching you girls for hours now and you need to get to work. You’ve been doing a lot of laughing and you guys seem like you’re having too much fun.’ I mean we’ve definitely bickered a little bit haha. But at the end of the day, whatever I can’t finish my sister’s there to do and vice versa.

“So, it’s almost like having two of yourself to get something done. If your heart is feeling like you’re not in the workspace that you need to be, try different things. For a long time, I was in a mediocre position thinking, ‘What am I doing? What talents do I have that I can use?’ Every time somebody gets one of our works, they’re just so blessed to have it. I feel like that was God telling me, ‘This is the direction I want to bring you. Get out of that place that you’re in and come into this rewarding profession where you can work with your family and be a blessing to other people.”

Interviewed by Jay Max

‘Never let a disability get you down. You can do anything you set your mind to.’

Wantagh

“I was born with cerebral palsy. When I was very little, I had to be confined to a wheelchair because it was very difficult to walk. I have certain challenges. I was made fun of when I was younger. I was teased and picked on because of my disability. But cerebral palsy doesn’t stop me from being me.

“Now I’m a volunteer for many different organizations across Long Island. I was recognized by the Town of Hempstead with the Make A Difference Award in 2014 for what I have done and achieved.

We must all learn and become aware of people’s needs and treat everyone equally and with respect.

“I have recently started to advocate for the J-1 visa program, which allows foreign students to come to the U.S. to work with special needs young adults and then go to school to study special ed.

“I have also worked for the Marty Lyons Foundation, which, like Make-A-Wish, grants wishes to special children. I have to make sure that when the child comes to New York, everything is in place for their wish and stay.

“As a Make-A-Wish alumnus, I see the importance in helping others. This past year, I raised over $6,000 for the AHRC Foundation at their annual walkathon. It made me feel very special and proud that I accomplished that goal because it was not easy to do.

“The walkathon was one of my proudest moments because I didn’t even know I raised that much money until that morning. Everybody congratulated me, and it was just such a great moment! I’m also big into sports. I play baseball with the League of Yes. It’s a special needs league for kids with disabilities. I play wheelchair lacrosse for Garden City.

“It’s a challenger division because everyone has special needs. I do a lacrosse tournament every summer in Massapequa called Shootout for Soldiers, and I’m the only one in a wheelchair that plays in that game. Everyone else walks. So, to me it’s very special. I want everyone to know that people with special needs, especially the ones who use a wheelchair like me, need to be heard.

“We must all learn and become aware of people’s needs and treat everyone equally and with respect. I think that it’s very important that everybody understands my story. Never let a disability get you down. You can do anything you set your mind to. Nothing will stop me, not even a wheelchair.”

Interviewed by Jay Max

‘A love of film is really where it all started, and the career kind of chased me rather than the other way around.’

Merrick

“A love of film is really where it all started, and the career kind of chased me rather than the other way around. I always enjoyed films when I was young and was the kind of person who would stay up to watch the late show and the late, late show and the late, late, late show on my little black-and-white TV in my room.

“I ended up co-creating the Long Island International Film Expo and created and ran the Nassau County film office for 33 years until I left December of 2020 to concentrate on my writing and directing career.

You create worlds. You’re basically creating a world. It’s amazing.

“If I could only do one thing for the rest of my life, it would be writing. The reason I direct is I want to see the story told the way I see it. There are a lot of great directors, and there are things that I write that I would have no problem selling. But then there are certain pieces that are just very personal to me.

“The reason I love the casting end of it is because I love actors. I mean, there are ones that are so talented. Somebody asked me at the ImageOut Film Festival, ‘What was your favorite thing throughout the filming process?,’ and I said sitting there and watching the actors bring the words to life exactly like I thought they should be … and even better at times. It’s like magic, you know? Imagine you have this little idea in your head and then you manifest it into something concrete.

“I mean, if it’s a project that I’ve done, you’re creating something that didn’t exist before. And, if you do it well, people can watch it and get drawn into it and maybe learn things or have feelings or see things differently than they did before.

“With my series ‘Couple of Guys,’ an LGBTQ+ love story, I just fell in love with the characters, and I wanted to see what their life would be like. Could they have a happy ending to everything that they’ve gone through? What happened to the people they left behind? It’s sort of like eavesdropping in a diner, only you’re there pulling the strings, ha ha. Except the actors I usually work with are so great that you’re not pulling any strings.

“They know those characters better than you do at that point. So, it’s just incredible to watch them. You create worlds. You’re basically creating a world. It’s amazing.”

Interviewed by Jay Max

‘To know he’s changing someone’s life like that has been truly rewarding and fulfilling on so many levels.’

Lake Ronkonkoma

“We rescued him six years ago. We named him Buddy after the movie ‘Elf,’ and then once he started playing piano, we added Mercury. He’s almost 7 years old. I think 7 might be his lucky age. He’s not a regular dog. He plays the piano and sings every day. I played piano when I was young and saw a piano at our neighbor’s curb. We got the piano into the house, and I never got back to it, but Buddy did. He rescued our piano in a way. It was covered in dust up until then.

“Buddy’s fame really took off a few years ago and has been really growing in recent years. There’s a video of him and our little one, Lil Sis, on our YouTube channel that has nearly 20 million views. I think our YouTube blew up because people wanted to see them play and grow up together. She’ll play piano or tambourines and use little guitars, and she loves to sing. They’re so cute together, but they are the typical brother-sister combination where sometimes, you do need to separate them, or they get on each other’s nerves.

“We’ve had people tell us, ‘My mom’s been in the nursing home for 10 years and I haven’t seen her smile until we showed her Buddy’s video.’ To know he’s changing someone’s life like that has been truly rewarding and fulfilling on so many levels. Until he doesn’t want to play, we’ll never stop posting these happy, little, fun videos. It’s all about spreading happiness, spreading joy, and making people smile. There’s such stress and chaos going on in the world.

“Ironically, when we saw him at the adoption event, what Glen loved about him was that he was so quiet. It was only a month or two after we rescued him that he started howling along to a fire siren. We had no idea beagles sing. Different news channels picked him up. Buddy was on ‘Good Morning America’ a few years ago and won Most Tail-ented Award. All this craziness started, and we said we have to do more. We’re going to start getting him out for more meet-and-greets. Maybe he’ll do a tour someday. Now with the weather getting warmer, we’re going to do a Long Island dog meetup. Next month, he’s going to be performing at a library. We’re going to get him back out there. We’re ready. He’s ready.”

He just wants to play the piano and he’s happy. His tail is always wagging.

“Buddy was a rescue. He was a stray in North Carolina when a rescue picked him up before coming to New York. Rescues are just so special. We want to keep sharing with the world to rescue and adopt. Buddy has an online store and we make a monthly donation with the percentage of the sales. We donate to animal shelters and rescues. We created a calendar where we ask our fans who would like to be in our calendar. We pick 12 animals to feature. Whichever rescue they were rescued from, in that month, we make a donation to that shelter or that rescue. Shelters are overrun with animals, so anything we can do to save another life is rewarding. It’s about community. We think he’s proud of his mission. Unfortunately, he’s going blind now. He was recently diagnosed with an eye disease called PRA. It kind of took us a while to talk about it without getting really upset. As humans, we rely so much on our vision, but dogs really don’t. For them, it’s all about the scents and the feel and the hearing. He’s doing really well with the transition. He’s almost completely blind now, but he has a little bit of vision. He probably can see shadows still out of his right eye, but the left eye progressed pretty rapidly. He does see an eye specialist, and so right now, that is a challenge for us just acclimating him to the transition, but he’s doing so well.

“He just wants to play the piano, and he’s happy. His tail is always wagging. We don’t know what this challenge may present with getting him out to performances, but so far, he’s doing so well, thankfully. The good news is he’s still going to live a long, happy, healthy life. I just love everything about this little guy. He’s so funny. He keeps us laughing. At the end of the day, he just wants to snuggle with me on the couch. He’s loving and he’s easygoing. If we could, if we had the room, we would adopt 100 more beagles. Animals ground you and bring happiness and joy. I grew up with dogs and at a young age, I was always exposed to dogs, but Buddy’s been our first dog together, as a family, and it’s just that much more special.”

He gave us a way to really help people, a bigger purpose.

“He’s just so loving. He has a heart of gold. He’s actually my first dog. I started training him. I got him to sit, roll over, give me the paw and beg. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if he could play the piano?’ I got him up there and hit some keys, and before I knew it, he started doing it on his own. This was in 2016. He would start choosing to do it himself, which is crazy. I was in the other room when he did it for the first time by himself. The first time I saw him playing, my jaw hit the floor. I couldn’t even believe it. I felt like I was dreaming. I think that’s a lot of people’s first reactions. I dove for my phone to catch it on video because I thought nobody would believe this. Some people online accuse him of being fake, of being CGI. I think of it as a compliment really.

“I’m a drummer. He sometimes sings when I’m playing because my drum set is downstairs, so he’ll sing along. In a recent video, I actually did play along with a piano player and Buddy, so it was all three of us playing together. The first time we heard him howling along to a fire siren, we were laughing. It was hysterical. Every day he does something different. He’s like a person, almost, that just can’t speak, but he does speak with the piano.

“I think he likes to create great music, but he also does get a tasty reward. Before the pandemic, I took him to training to be a therapy dog. Now, we’re focusing on his eye diagnosis and that transition. I just hope he leaves a legacy of happiness. I want people, if they’re feeling down, to always be able to go to his YouTube channel and he’ll brighten them up. He gave us a way to really help people, a bigger purpose.”

Interviewed by Melanie Gulbas

‘Passions are innate in all of us, and it’s so important for us to follow them.’

Garden City

“Ten years ago, I had an idea for a story. I’m an attorney by trade, but I said to my wife, ‘I think I’m going to write a short film.’ I based it on stories I heard growing up about my family in Brooklyn. I had never taken a writing class. I asked a client of mine in the entertainment business to read it and he said it was very good.

“Through him, I met Federico Castelluccio from ‘The Sopranos.’ Next thing I know, Paul Sorvino and other guys from ‘The Sopranos’ were acting in my film.

“I enjoyed writing so much that, while writing the screenplay for the feature length version of the film, ‘The Brooklyn Banker,’ I also wrote a play; ‘A Queen for a Day’ starred David Proval and Vinny Pastore and did really well Off-Broadway. You’re not making money doing this. In fact, this passion I had was costing more than I was making.

My philosophy is that you have to create every day.

“You’re making something from nothing, and the creative process is very fulfilling. I was seeing the fruits of my labor coming out of these wonderful actors’ mouths.

“I also found myself sketching. Federico said he wanted to see some of my work and then invited me to an abstract art exhibit. I started immersing myself in art.

“Next thing I know, I’m having an exhibit in the city! My work has progressed, and I’m starting to mature into different areas. It was all organic. Most recently, I decided to take my existing pieces, rip them into shreds, and then re-weave them together. That became my latest exhibit at Long Island University, ‘Woven.’”

“My philosophy is that you have to create every day. You will have taken something from nothing, created it and given it out to the world. These passions are innate in all of us, and it’s so important for us to follow them.

“At the end of the day, you don’t want to say, ‘I had that idea! I could have done that!’ Being an attorney has taught me to think logically and put things in order, which has helped me in my many artistic journeys.

“I put my time in, and I work at it. If you just hope, it won’t happen. I’m happy that any success I have now didn’t happen when I was 21 because I wouldn’t have appreciated it. Now I can point to my creative pursuits and say, ‘I did that. I put my mind to it and I did it.’”

Interviewed by Iris Wiener