‘I started surrounding myself with women who had something going on, who had goals, who were inspiring other women, who were community leaders.’

Alexandra Velez, Brentwood

“When I was 14, my dad decided we were moving from Brooklyn to Puerto Rico. His mom had moved a couple years prior to that, and he’s definitely what we call a mama’s boy. I lived there for 11 years, I went to high school and did some college in Puerto Rico.

“I will be honest, I disliked my parents for the first few months of being in Puerto Rico. However, as the years went by, when I think back, I was blessed — there were beaches and sun year-round. My friends in New York were in a foot of snow, and I was at the beach. And I’m also very grateful because that helped me become bilingual; it just took me a little bit to get to that way of thinking.

The feeling is of a big family, whether it’s a lunch gala or a vision board, this is your home.

“When we moved to Puerto Rico, my dad started his own business; he took over a supermarket. That helped me get interested in business, marketing, becoming comfortable speaking to people, being comfortable with money. Many people don’t feel comfortable with money. It showed me a different world., I was extremely shy, and it took me out of my shell.

“I moved back when I was about 25. I moved out to Long Island to start a family and raise our two daughters, and little by little, the rest of my family came back. At some point, having gone through a traumatic separation, I was in a dark place. I was tired of being negative, I was tired of being in a bad mood, I was tired of not having anything to look forward to, even though I had two beautiful daughters. There were times when I wanted to give up on everything.

“One day I was, like, ‘I need something better.’ I started surrounding myself with women who had something going on, who had goals, who were inspiring other women, who were community leaders. When I was in Puerto Rico, I did a couple of events with friends. I thought, ‘Why not try it here?’ I wanted to do an event to bring women together, a day of inspiration, a day that just highlighted women.

“From that luncheon in March 2016, Flutterflies was born. The feeling is of a big family, whether it’s a lunch gala or a vision board, this is your home. Flutterflies started as a women’s empowerment organization. However, really, the message is for everyone, no matter the sex.”

Interviewed by Barbara Schuler

‘There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.’

Brentwood

“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, which cover most of the Island and help out communities in need.

“In 2014, I did my first community service project, which was cleaning up streets with the Boy Scouts with the Lions Club. After that, I became the Tree Lighting Club president at my school, and I continued to engage with other community service outreach programs. Something that helped me a lot was the encouragement of my parents.

“They came to the United States from Colombia 20 years ago for a better life. What I look back at is how my parents suffered, and how I don’t want other people suffering. I recruited 37 students from all over Long Island, and we created a group where we would serve our community in our free time and give back to those who need it most.

That’s my message to the world: If you want to make this world a better place, lift someone up.

“We all, as young people, have a voice; it’s probably not as powerful as an adult’s, but we can effect change. When I saw my school district throwing food away during the summer due to parents not picking up food for the children, I decided to pick up all that food before it was going to be thrown away and bring it to local fridges where families can have fresh food for their families. It’s a diverse community I live in, and we are here to support one another.

“This past December and January, there were seven families whose houses burned down, and they were left with nothing. We students decided to take action by getting them COVID tests, reusable water bottles, backpacks, hygiene stuff and clothes. If you want to be a leader, you start from ground zero and you continue going up. It’s not only adults, it’s not only our oldest generation, it’s anyone.

“In May, we have a community service project we want to do which involves cleaning up three communities, specifically recreational parks. We plan to clean up garbage and make the space a positive place, not only for the environment, but for the little ones to play. There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. That’s my message to the world: If you want to make this world a better place, lift someone up.”

Interviewed by Hannah Fusaro

‘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

‘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

‘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

‘I tell my students all the time: There are 24 hours in the day. You can have your main job and can also make money in things you’re passionate about.’

Brentwood

“I wasn’t anticipating being part of a school district after I graduated. I had no interest in being a teacher, but it kind of fell in my lap because I have a passion for sports. I became a coach first, and then they asked if I was interested in becoming a substitute teacher, and so I winged it. I wasn’t really interested, but then I fell in love with it.

“Living in New York, you’re more than likely going to need more than one source of income. I tell my students all the time: There are 24 hours in the day. You can have your main job and can also make money in things you’re passionate about. You can have multiple passions and become lucrative. You don’t have to be boxed into something you think society wants you to do.

“I also run a multidisciplinary media business, and, basically, I do photography, I do videography, and it’s mainly in the entertainment space. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the biggest musicians in the country.

Anything you do, just do it big.

“Yams Day was when my work started to be featured on Complex and TMZ and a whole bunch of outlets that I had no idea even saw my work, let alone posted it, until the next day. It kind of blew me up.

“I gotta be honest, I snuck into [Yams Day]. I didn’t have access to a certain point, and I saw a friend of mine named ItsBizkit, one of the biggest bloggers in the industry. He had a guest pass with A$AP Rocky and said, ‘I’ll bring you with me.’ He gave me his plus-one, and from there I was able to get some pretty cool content.

“Before you know it, I started to work with acts like Dave East. I gained a lot of following on Instagram, and it allowed me to hit the ground running. I’ve been booked steadily since then. It changed my life.

“I recently came out with a book, which has a lot of my favorite images, because I wanted to put something out there that is tangible, something that people can look at 50 years from now and say, ‘Wow, this is what was going on in New York entertainment and culture at that time.’ It’s a time stamp.

“Everything colossal stems from that mindset. Anything you do, just do it big. Whatever your occupation, really take it and make it your own and build it into something bigger than you could even imagine it being.”

Interviewed by Dan Offner

‘That was a big shift in my life, and I became a lot more grateful and happy, understanding how close life and death are.’

Brentwood

“I always try to have a positive energy. Growing up, my two sisters passed away, and I never knew how to handle it. Then I got into a bad car accident around 2015, but I was in great spirits.

“I remember being in the hospital talking to my dad and my brother and laughing and telling jokes. I realized I had two angels watching me. That was a big shift in my life, and I became more grateful and happy, understanding how close life and death are.

“My parents worked two jobs for most of my life, so from a young age I knew nothing was free, everything comes at a price, whether it was the price of time, the price of comfort.

I had to become a creative thinker and help people be able to move forward. People were afraid with all their chips on the table with buying and selling a house.

“My brother helped raise me and gave me the never-quit mentality. He helped me with my homework; that was where the sit-down-and-figure-it-out mentality came from.

“I got into real estate because one of my cousins became my mentor and got me into entrepreneurship at a young age. I graduated from college and was working in banking when I got my real estate license.

“My cousin kept giving me encouragement, and we ended up teaming up in real estate, which is now a passion of mine. I quit my full-time job to go full time in real estate. My first month out, I found out I was having a son. It was a blessing; it was a big push in my career, to go harder and give it my all.

“I had a great year and then COVID hit, so then I was at home with a 1-year-old. Everyone’s fearing for their lives, but also the fear and anxiety of deals falling apart, mortgages can’t get approved.

“I had to become a creative thinker and help people be able to move forward. People were afraid with all their chips on the table with buying and selling a house. Now you have this boom — low inventory in houses and prices going up. I have to do a lot of explaining to the buyers. It’s been good for myself because I became a lot more well-informed about what’s going on in the market.

“My clients I consider family at the end of the day because we go through so much together. A lot of my clients come from past relationships, from banking. I used to box, so people come from inside the gyms. There’s a definite joy seeing someone get their first home, seeing someone sell and move up into a new home.”

‘I think it’s also okay to look for God and reflect on things you’ve done right or wrong. I feel like a lot of the times comedy tends to be rhetorical questions.’

Brentwood

“I think the comedic world where I’m from is very simple and it needs to be reinvented. So, I feel like it’s my obligation to the future of this community on Long Island to give them something to be proud of. And as a Brown person, I think I’m almost there, but I think as long as I have a kind heart and a willingness to learn from others in the process, I think that this community will thrive.

“In my early-to-mid 20s, I was actually a poet. I really loved poetry, so much so that I started sharing tables with poet laureates. I felt it was kind of limited. I wanted more stage time. They were like ‘You can only read two poems at a time.’ Then, one day, I went to this discourse with all these poet laureates, and I just started roasting everyone.

“I think when I first discovered comedy, I was 8 years old and at the time my aunt was my caretaker. One day, I saw the first episode of “The Chappelle Show,” and at the time this dude was a 27-year-old guy who has been in the game since he was 14. He was gifted and there was a certainty that I was hooked. Then I discovered Gabriel Iglesias, Greg Giraldo, and Eddie Murphy. I like the old-timers.

Over the last couple of years, I feel like I was offered a challenge.

“I’m a visual learner. I try to look for silence a lot of the time. I try not to put myself in a loud place when I don’t want to be. I think it’s also okay to look for God and reflect on things you’ve done right or wrong. I feel like a lot of the times comedy tends to be rhetorical questions. This year has been pretty rough for me as a producer.

“Over the last couple of years, I feel like I was offered a challenge. Even more so with everything that has been going on during this pandemic, but I took this challenge truly to heart. I feel as though this year things are sort of changing in the right direction.

“My goal was to find more Black comedians who are not only men but women most importantly. Women who are Latinos, Asians, Middle Eastern, just people in general. I feel white people kind of saturated it. I want to hear people out. I want to listen to different types of stories. I curate the type of shows I personally would want to watch myself.”

‘I wanted to give a platform to people that are missing so that victims gain closure and some comfort.’

Brentwood

“I’ve always had an eye for radio and television. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in school, and I was a little intimidated growing up because nobody was going to school for TV. I had to take a leap of faith. I obtained a degree in radio and television and created a platform called ‘Tee Talk’ on which I became known as Ms. Tee Talk. My goal was to give back to Long Island, so I have interviewed more than 100 people, from chefs, to photographers, to people who have their own businesses. Long Island didn’t have that, and it has been great to see the light on people’s faces when they are made to feel included. People from all over the country have now been on the show. It has been an amazing journey.

It’s a big risk to be in TV because you have to know somebody or you have to do cartwheels, but it’s worth it.

“I also wanted to test my skills a little bit, so I created a show called ‘Missing On Long Island.’ I wanted to give a platform to people that are missing so that victims gain closure and some comfort. The first episode is about Sofia McKenna, which went viral with over 220,000 views on YouTube. The second episode just came out. Their storylines are about what happened before they went missing. Hundreds of thousands of people have gone missing on Long Island in the last 20 years, and there has never been a show created about it. Now I have been working on ‘Tee Talk’ and ‘Missing on Long Island’ for the past 8 years. I edit, shoot, and do everything for them. It hasn’t been the smoothest journey, but when I know that people have smiles on their faces when they come onto ‘Tee Talk,’ or concerned parents and family members on ‘Missing on Long Island’ have that platform, it definitely makes me feel accomplished. I have learned that practice makes permanent.

“It’s important to invest in yourself. It’s always important to pour into yourself and to keep learning. I pride myself on my work ethic and staying connected to my Long Island roots. It’s a big risk to be in TV because you have to know somebody or you have to do cartwheels, but it’s worth it. Those two shows, which are very different, are my entire life. I always put my heart, energy and time into them to really make them boom and people love it.”