Dr. Stephen Blumberg, Pediatric Emergency Physician at Jacobi Medical Center
Dr. Stephen Blumberg is the Associate Director of the Pediatric ER and the Program Director of the fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine, a nationally renowned training program.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Blumberg actively developed, led and implemented Jacobi’s hospital-wide disaster response. When COVID-19 began to quickly spread in March and April last year, Jacobi was particularly hard hit, having over 1,200 admitted Covid patients, with more than 300 of them intubated. Steve’s colleagues in the Pediatric ER assisted their Adult ER colleagues by caring for adults of all ages in the Pediatric ER. Some patients remained in the Pediatric ER for their entire hospital stay due to a lack of beds and staff being available in the adult units.
Dr. Blumberg himself recently contracted Covid-19 and had to be hospitalized. Dr. Blumberg, an Associate Professor in Pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has since made a full recovery and recently returned to work.
Dr. Blumberg has leadership roles on many hospital-wide committees, including immediate past President of the Jacobi Medical Staff, Associate Medical Director of the Pediatric Trauma Center and the current President of the North Bronx Faculty Practice. His family belongs to South Huntington Jewish Center and actively raise funds for Sunrise Day Camp-Long Island, a free summer camp for children with cancer and their siblings. The family served as co-chairs for SunriseWALKS 2019, which raised over one million dollars for Sunrise.
Judi Caron, Co-Chair of i-tri girls
Judi Caron
I-tri girls, a non-profit based on the East End of Long Island, empowers middle school-age girls by helping them build confidence and self-esteem through youth-distance triathlons. When COVID hit last Spring, i-tri Co-Chair Judi Caron coordinated a drive to fund urgent food needs for families in need. She also helped lead i-tri to ensure that the organization could switch all efforts to virtual, providing much needed mental health support to the girls.
Judi discovered the power of triathlon by participating in two Danskin Triathlons. She joined the i-tri Board in 2015 when she moved full time to Sag Harbor. She volunteered for several years in a women’s homeless shelter through Partnership for the Homeless and sponsored and mentored a Bronx High School student for four years through Student Sponsor Partnership.
I-tri has shown measurable improvements in self-confidence, self-awareness and perseverance among participants.
Chabad of Long Island
The Chabad Lubavitch are known for their outreach and embrace of Jews of all levels of observance--efforts that often take the form of no-cost face-to-face educational events and celebrations of Jewish life. The Covid-19 pandemic saw the 13 Suffolk branches of the 38 under the Chabad Long Island umbrella, directed by Rabbi Tuvia Teldon and Mrs. Chaya Teldon, adapt many of their programs for social distancing and other safety measures.
Among measures to meet the pandemic’s challenges, the various Suffolk Chabad houses offered food and supply deliveries, including soup, challah and meals to isolated seniors; packed care packages, including hundreds of boxes of matzos for Passover; taught multiple classes over social media and Zoom; and set up drive-by Sukkahs and other holiday offerings.
We recognize the Teldons and the following Suffolk Chabad leaders for their hard work and care for the community during the pandemic:
Rabbi Asher Vaisfiche, Mrs. Miriam Vaisfiche of the Melville & Huntington Chabad Center. Rabbi Shaya Hurwitz, Mrs. Mushky Hurwitz of Chabad of North Fork. Rabbi Chaim Grossbaum, Mrs. Rivkie Grossbaum, Rabbi Motti Grossbaum, Rabbi Shalom Ber Cohen, Mrs. Chaya Grossbaum of Village Chabad of Stony Brook. Rabbi Yakov Saacks, Mrs. Zoey Saacks, Rabbi Dovid Weinbaum, Mrs. Mirel Weinbaum of The Chai Center of Dix Hills. Rabbi Leibel Baumgarten, Mrs. Goldie Baumgarten, Rabbi Aizik Baumgarten, Mrs. Musia Baumgarten of Chabad of the Hamptons. Rabbi Shimon Stillerman, Mrs. Zeldy Stillerman of Chabad of Islip Township. Rabbi Berel Sasonkin of Chabad of Patchogue. Rabbi Adam Stein, Mrs. Esther Stein of Chabad at SUNY at Stony Brook. Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Raskin, Mrs. Chaya Mushka Raskin of Chabad of Huntington Village. Rabbi Mendel Teldon, Mrs. Brocha Teldon of Chabad of Mid-Suffolk, Rabbi Mendy & Rochel Goldberg of Chabad House of Coram. Rabbi Rafe Konikov, Mrs. Chany Konikov of Chabad of Southampton. Rabbi Levi Baumgarten of Chabad of Watermill.
William Ferro, Founder of Ferro, Kuba, Mangano, PC
In 2013, the law firm Ferro, Kuba, Mangano, PC, under the leadership of Managing Partner William Ferro, began converting a portion of its Hauppauge offices into a toy “store” during December to cater to the Hispanic underserved community in partnership with Pronto in Bay Shore. Some 30 families and 100 children went on virtual shopping sprees for free toys. Just three years later the drive collected 1,500 toys for 100 families and 400 children.
This year we honor Ferro for the relief and joy the free toys offered during the 2020 toy drive provided for children and families during the especially challenging pandemic. To ensure safety, the toys were offered in a drive-up setting.
Ferro, who has been named a New York State Super Lawyer five times, began his career as a criminal defense attorney where he handled myriad high-profile criminal matters, civil rights and police brutality cases. He later started a successful personal injury practice, which for the past decade has focused on connecting Spanish-speaking clients to the firm. The increase in Hispanic clientele drew Ferro’s attention to the needs of New York’s underserved Latino community. As a result, the firm has expanded its philanthropic efforts to include providing school supplies to the community; specifically, in Brentwood where they opened a community law clinic, launch food drives throughout the year, donate to children’s hospitals and transform their office into a toy “store” for families. The firm also has three Spanish language radio programs on both Long Island and in New York City.
Ferro is a graduate of Brooklyn Law School and lives on Long Island. He was named one of Long Island’s Most Influential People of 2010.
Rachel Gentile, the Sharing Table and the Pantry, Suffolk Y JCC
One of the first homegrown goodwill centers known as Sharing Tables, offering nonperishable food, toiletries, and supplies to anyone suffering financially from the pandemic, was set up by Rachel Gentile and her friend Barbara Turtel in front of Gentile’s Commack home in early December.
Gentile’s Sharing Table provided an outlet for her giving ways and a constructive path to deal with her grief: Her husband Bruce had just died, on Thanksgiving Day. But neighbors complained about Rachel’s setup in front of her home, prompting local officials to give her two weeks to find a new location.
Rachel didn’t miss a beat. Within two weeks of being told to move her Sharing Table, the Suffolk Y JCC stepped in and offered Rachel a space. Key to making the move happen were social worker Sheila Goloboy; Tina Block, the Y’s Chief Program Officer for Adult Services; and Marlie Cohen, Chief Program Officer of the Mid Island Y JCC and Suffolk Y JCC.
Rachel set up in her new digs, a rear outdoor-facing storage area for the facility’s musical theater props.
Rachel pushed on through an often-cold winter that saw the January death of her brother, David, from Covid. “Within six weeks I lost the men who were my right and left arms. But this was a good way to turn all that negative into a positive,” she said on a frigid, blustery day at the pantry. “There’s so much food disparity and so many people in despair on Long Island.”
The Suffolk Y, meanwhile, had set up its own pantry just as New York was shutting down in March last year. For vulnerable seniors, the Y delivered meals, arranged for curbside pickups and sent volunteers shopping. A phone line was set up to take food orders to avoid providing unwanted goods. Volunteers packed bags of non-perishable goods for the newly jobless.
The Y packed and delivered more than 17,000 meals to seniors and families last year, while providing grocery shopping for 500 seniors, mostly every two weeks.
Further, the Suffolk Y JCC kept its day care center running to help provide relief to families of frontline workers.
Block says the Sharing Table and the Suffolk Y have “a perfect match.” Visitors to the Sharing Table have access to the Y’s social workers, who help with food stamp and Medicaid applications, as well as employment, legal and other services. “It made sense to give them a home,” Block says.
Tali Hinkis, Interdisciplinary Artist
Setauket artist Tali Hinkis was born in Israel and studied art in Paris. With artist Kyle Lapidus, she is half of the team known as Lovid, whose interdisciplinary works explore “the often invisible or intangible aspects of contemporary society, such as communication systems and biological signals,” according to their website. “We are particularly interested in the ways technology seeps into the evolution of human culture.”
During the pandemic, Hinkis applied her skills to help support other artists hit financially by Covid in Suffolk and elsewhere. Hinklis supported local artists by attending and participating in “Artist’s Encounters” Zoom presentations, which take viewers into local studios and allow artists to stay relevant and promote their works during financially difficult times. Further, Hinklis has been mentoring young Suffolk County artists via online platforms during the pandemic.
In 2015 Hinkis participated in “Projecting Freedom: Cinematic Interpretations of the Haggadah,” which showed 15 short video pieces by 11 noted Jewish film and video artists, interpreting the segments of the Haggadah. In 2019, she was featured in the Times of Israel as a Jewish artist pushing the technological frontier. In 2020, she founded “Artists for Nancy,” a grassroots effort to encourage political activism through art.
JeTTA and BEaM, West Hills Torah Center
JeTTA (Jewish Teens Take Action) and BEaM (BE a Mitzvah) are programs aimed at involving, respectively, high school students and middle schoolers in community service. The programs were founded by Rabbi Yitschak Hassine and his wife Rochel, who run the Abe & Kay Sterman Torah Center, also called the West Hills Torah Center, in Huntington, N.Y.
The young volunteers in the Hassines’ programs didn’t let the Covid-19 pandemic slow them down. Among their activities, they ran clothing drives through social media and word of mouth; raised money and gathered food for those in need; ran toy drives; and raised awareness about antisemitism and racism.
We recognize the Hassines and the following young people for their standout work with JeTTA and BEaM: Ashleigh Brett, Ava Candia, Breana Crossman, Alex Dordick, Julia Garelick, Jessica Gelman, Mason Herman, Olivia Herman, Kyle Kesselman, Sophia Labianca, Logan Zipper.
Doctor Brian Ludwig
Long Island Optometry Care specializes in providing mobile, in-home optometry eyecare services to individuals throughout Suffolk County who are home-bound and elderly in the comfort of their own home, or community. Doctor Brian Ludwig is a NYS licensed optometrist and built this company from the ground up nearly four years ago. He is passionate about this field and enjoys being the best doctor he can for his patients. His brother, Doctor Eric Ludwig, also a NYS licensed optometrist recently joined the company and shares similar values.
Throughout the pandemic, Doctor Brian Ludwig and Doctor Eric Ludwig have provided Suffolk County residents who have difficulty getting to eye doctor appointments or would prefer not to visit an eye doctor's office due to risks of possible COVID-19 exposure with in-home routine eye exams, medical optometric care, and eyeglasses. Long Island Optometry Care is a family-owned organization who has been faced with overcoming challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The New York Friendship Circle
The New York Friendship Circle provides support to families of children with special needs by pairing the children with volunteers who form relationships with them through activities, typically in-person. Covid-19 limited those direct contacts, however, prompting some creative programs that kept the Friendship Circle effort alive throughout the many difficult months of the pandemic.
When Alana Kessler started her role as Director for the New York Friendship Circle at the height of the pandemic, in August 2020, she knew programming had to be adapted to keep everyone safe. The organization launched both online and outdoor programs for extra levels of safety.
It launched the new year of programming with a Kickoff CARnival, a drive-by event that featured carnival games, a balloon artist, and prizes, and included more than 20 volunteers and 30 participants and their families.
An outdoor Hip Hop program had dancers keeping in socially distanced Hula Hoops. The group collected and decorated cans that were donated to Island Harvest before Thanksgiving. In another event, high school volunteer Emma Klein started the charity Joggers for Juniors and got donations from apparel maker Gildan and dye maker Rit Dye, so the volunteers could make tie-dyed sweatpants. The clothes and volunteer-made cards were donated to children in shelters, including the Bethany House in Nassau County.
The Friendship Circle hosts Zoom programs for all ages and abilities. The group began highlighting exceptional individuals in a program called Integrated Conversations. Two speakers so far have modeled how to persevere beyond a disability, underscoring the importance of inclusion. The two “conversation leaders” were both adults with autism who have become volunteers. One, Matthew Alexander, led a fitness class over Zoom and helped facilitate the group’s musical theater program.
Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center is a Jewish sponsored law school that is part of the Touro College and University System. The school’s mission, consistent with Jewish tradition, is to provide a diverse student body a rigorous, innovative, and immersive path towards becoming practice-ready professionals committed to promoting social justice and serving the needs of their clients and communities with compassion and integrity.
The Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center established a COVID-19 HELPLINE to answer legal questions arising from the pandemic. Volunteer attorneys as well as faculty, staff, and students provide referrals to our own clinical program and appropriate legal partners on a wide range of legal issues. The HELPLINE offers a comprehensive response through coordination with pro bono attorneys from local bar associations and cooperation with Long Island's not for profit and government agencies.
The HELPLINE is open Monday through Friday. Students and attorneys provide community members in need with free assistance or referrals on a myriad of issues including landlord-tenant, civil liberties, bankruptcy, employee rights, unemployment, stimulus payment, insurance, and more.
Since April 2020, the HELPLINE has received more than 1,000 calls and continues to receive calls on a daily basis. Touro's disaster response during the pandemic is a continuation of our work after Hurricane Sandy.