COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD
“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”
- Albert Einstein
PAT CASTANIA & MUSICOLOGY ALL STARTS 2023
We would like to shine the spotlight on Pat Castania, Maddox Elbert, Chase Elbert, Lila Neimann, Hannah Hennen, Timmy Sandbichler & Nick Singer as they continue to entertain our supporters at SCF events.
Their joy of sound under the leadership of Pat Castania is boundless & we could not be more grateful to them!
NIKKI MAUCERI
2022 COMMUNITY TABLE
Nickki (aka Coco) is a 2014 Smithtown East Graduate who followed her passions of fashion & cosmetology. She hosts her own blog at Keeping Up With Coco (kuwococo.com). Check out her Holiday Gift Guide!
She very generously reached out to us a few years ago to offer product donations that she received to write about. Many of the over the top baskets you have won in the past few years which are filled with these fabulous products! This has allowed us to raise more funds to help local families!
Mike Liebold had become an integral part of the SCF over the last several years. He has spent a great deal of time advocating for families in need and stepping up as a volunteer no matter how last minute our request is. During the pandemic, Mike took his children to deliver meals for our most disadvantaged families & advocated for families that he knew who could use a hand up.
Mike takes every opportunity possible to involve his children and his boy scouts in his community service endeavors, as he recognizes the importance of raising the next generation to be compassionate and socially aware. However, what impresses us the most is how Mike successfully accomplishes this while humbly flying under the radar. The SCF has been able to help so many more families with Mike’s help & Smithtown is a better place because of people like Mike.
MIKE LIEBOLD
2022 GOLF
MIKE LANDRIGAN
SMITHTOWN FIRE DEPARTMENT 2021
We are very excited to provide a 2021 Inspirational Community Leader Award to Michael Landrigan. Mike has always given back to his community, most notably as a former Smithtown Fire Department Chief. Mike also provides joy to many through his entertainment business, In The Mood Productions. From the first moment the SCF met him, Mike stepped up, providing whatever the SCF needed from DJs to photobooths to step/repeat set ups, to supporting our Smi1es4S3an chapter, Mike can always be counted on!
The SCF has held many successful, fun events with Mike’s help & Smithtown is a better place because of people like Mike Landrigan!
KAREN CUNNINGHAM - 2019 GOLF
VEHICLE TRACKING SOLUTIONS
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We were first introduced to Karen when we launched our Hauppauge chapter. As a Hauppauge resident & business owner, Karen always generously supports our mission!
SMITHTOWN WEST FCCLA
2019 COMMUNITY TABLE
TAYLOR & SAMATHA BARONE
KATE TAYLOR
These three young ladies have been invaluable to the SCF! They have volunteered at various events, including our Community Table where they manned the SCF table, providing literature about the SCF & selling our car magnets. They encouraged our guests to take an ornament from our upside down Christmas Tree! They had done tons of tasks on the back end, filling goody bags & more!
After graduating from Smithtown West & graduating college, Amanda embarked on a journey to open her own business, The Whisk Bakery. Since opening, Amanda has supported the SCF by providing her amazing creations for our events, our families & providing gift cards for our raffles! She wowed Joe Zangri of The Watermill with a special birthday cake!
Amanda Vigliarolo
Owner of The Whisk Bakery
2019 COMMUNITY TABLE
SMITHTOWN WEST DECA TEAM
2019 DINNER DANCE
Victoria Holtje
Thomas Killeen
Matthew Tocharchewsky
Smithtown district has an exemplary School of Business that is recognized in NY State. Over the years, the SCF has been lucky to have the assistance of the district School of Business. We were excited to be the subject of the Business Olympics, receiving some wonderfully creative insightful presentations & videos from the students. The students are required to create an in depth manual that incorporates their knowledge about a particular subject, brainstorming fundraising ideas & raising awareness. These students are an amazing group of talented, ambitious, driven students, many of whom intern, shadow, work PT at local businesses & volunteer at our events. This past Oct, along with their fellow DECA constituents, 3 SHW DECA students ran a fall festival, raising $1200 for the SCF. We are proud to honor Victoria, Thomas & Matthew for their work on this event & also to showcase the care & love they show to their community through many community service projects not only for the SCF but other organizations as well!
JOANNE & MIKE MACHIA
Owners of Home Towne Tavern
2019 DINNER DANCE
Home Towne Tavern was first brought to our attention by Laura Cook, Sean's mom and head of our Smi1es4S3an chapter. As past supporters of the SCF, they have been sponsors at our golf outing and a Bowling Night in Sean's memory, hosting an after party of the Smiles motorcycle run, and a Red Nose Day for us. Joanne & Mike Macchia are community minded and each year run their own golf outing. This year, they really stepped it up their support of the SCF, making our Smi1es4S3en the beneficiary, raising over $4600. It is community minded business owners such at Joann & Mike who make us proud to live on Long Island.
COLIN FITZGERALD & RAYMOND ROSE
2018 DINNER DANCE
Colin as his sister before him has been my minion doing my bidding (& I mean that literally) since the foundation's inception when he was 8 yrs old. From loading/unloading my truck before/after events, to volunteering as santa's helper & clean up crew & then as "security" at the holiday breakfast at 10 years old. Colin has been my muscle early in the morning at Mike's Hike and when I gently persuade him to run at Mike's Hike & the Smithtown Kickers Annual Turkey Trot. Colin also ran his own SCF fundraiser at Yogurtini where he recruited friends to help & wore costumes to bring in customers off the street! But he's not done any of this alone as we recruited many of his buddies to pitch in along the way. But there is one young man who stands out, as he has been an integral part of the SCF, Raymond Rose. In addition to acting as security, and being muscle for us, Ray has also been a photographer when needed & he has been a voice for us at school in clubs such as DECA. So we wanted to acknowledge all of their help before they head off to college & remind everyone that you don't have to be an adult to make a difference in your world & all are welcome to join us in our efforts!
LAURA SPENCER
SMITHTOWN TEACHER'S ASSOCIATION
2018 DINNER DANCE
We met Laura early in the foundation's existence when she asked if the Smithtown Teachers’ Association could make a donation to the SCF. Since that time, the STA & Laura have continued to assist us at our events, from promoting our events, to providing product & much needed sponsorships, to getting us teacher volunteers. We continue to appreciate STA’s support as it helps lend legitimacy to our cause & shows everyone the solidarity between the SCF, the STA & the community.
DEIDRA KERNS
TASTE OF SMITHTOWN 2015
Deirdra, Smithtown HS West graduate, emancipated minor, Kaylee Rivers Courage Award recipient, pays it forward! As Deirdra works toward her college degree & interns, her creative nature helps us as she created our 10th Anniversary Community Service Logo!
KIM DEERY
GIRL SCOUT GOLD AWARD
TAST OF SMITHTOWN 2014
Each year, the foundation distributes between 40-60 filled backpacks to needy students in our schools. Unless we receive donations, we purchase these supplies from our own funds. We were thrilled when Kim asked if she could spearhead backpack/supply donations for us to have at the ready & to help defray our costs as her Girl Scout Gold Award Project. Not only has Kim written to corporations to obtain donations, but she also ran multiple school supply drives, one very successful drive smartly timed the weekend after school started at Staples! She then held a garage sale to raise funds to build shelving for us to store all of her donations. I am happy to report that we have enough supplies for the entire school year, thanks to Kim hard work and as a result, we recently awarded her a Community Service Award.
RENEE LYN SCOTT
FOUNDER OF STEPPING STONE SUPPORT
HURRICANE GRILL GOLF OUTING 2014
Reneé, diagnosed with Cervical Cancer at 28, found that there were no support groups for young adults facing cancer & infertility so in 2005, she founded Stepping Stone Support (SSS) to fill this void. SSS is dedicated to helping men/women affected by gynecologic cancers & supports them, their caregiver & children. Through the Little Helpers program, SSS adopts families over the holidays, lessening their financial burden & spreading joy. Similar to the SCF, SSS is an all-volunteer charity helping local families so we thought it only fitting that we honor Reneé for all of her efforts in the community.
JOE & JESSICA ONDRUSH
COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD
GOLF 2014
Joseph & Jessica Ondrush brought together their family/friends/neighbors/business contacts to help Dylan Beach, a local boy with a brain tumor. They learned of his illness as they had graduated high school with Dylan’s father. That was all they needed to hear & they put together a fundraiser for Dylan’s family & prior to that, they ran a fundraiser for a relative's daughter. For some, hosting one fundraiser is a daunting task. But the Ondrush team of Joe & Jessica are a force to be reckoned with & when they heard about their classmate’s son, they took charge & the SCF offered our assistance. It is this kind of spirit that formed the SCF & it is a pleasure to work with like minded individuals who do this for no other reason than it is it the right thing to do. The Ondrush family lives in St. James with their children & they work together at a local famliy owned business, so they understand the sense of community better than most. It gave us great pride to present them with a Community Service Award.
BOBBY HAZEN
LI DROWNING PREVENTION TASK FORCE FALL 2013
In an effort to show our support for Bobby's mission to keep kids safer in, on, or around water, the SCF awarded Bobby this year's community service award. In addition, the SCF made a donation to the LIDPTF to have 5,000 water safety brochures printed to be distributed in the school district in conjunction with the Safer 3 Water Safety Foundation character school assembly program that the LIDPTF hosts in conjunction with Saf-T-Swim at elementary & nursery schools , and summer camps. With the network that Bobby has built, the LIDPTF has been able to educate and reach almost 13,000 school children about water safety since just this past March.
AMANDA STOERBACK & ALYCIA SANTOSUS
DECA SPRING 2013
Amanda and Alycia, juniors from Smithtown High School East, initiated a community service project within their school’s DECA chapter to help support the foundation. In an effort to share their passion for community service, they hosted a series of fundraisers, including a bake sale, two restaurant fundraisers at Dunkin Donuts & Moe’s Southwest Grill, and they sold foundation logos at their monthly IAB meetings. They also set up a booth at St. James Day raising awareness of our mission and assisted us with a food/clothing drive, filling up 4 SUVs with bags of clothing & boxes of food from their efforts! We recently awarded them the SCF Community Service Awards at their IAB meeting. Both of Amanda & Alycia competed at the DECA State Conference, taking First Place, and they will now go on to compete in Nationals! Most exciting to the foundation is that we are now generating a new generation of supporters. We are so proud of these ambitious young ladies!
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JOE VALENTINO
COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD
GOLF 2012
Joe Valentino of Titan Motor Group was awarded our 2012 Community Service Award for his invaluable support of the foundation. Whether sponsoring our events, attending them, or assisting us with grantees, he exemplifies our mission. Joe is one of the foundation’s unsung heroes and we appreciate all of his efforts on our behalf. He was also surprised to receive a special confection from Macayla Michaels Desserts in keeping with his infamous car commercial!
CHRIS JORGENSEN
COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD
2012 DINNER / DANCE
In 2009, Chris Jorgensen came to our golf outing. He couldn’t recall how he’d heard about it but said it was the right thing to do since he’d heard about and believed in our mission. Since then, Chris has supported us at every turn. He is a regular attendee at many of our events, volunteers at others, and most importantly, he has told countless others about our mission. Chris also hosted a guest bartender night at Butterfields for the foundation. At our 2012 dinner/dance, we gave Chris our 2012 Community Service Award for all of his efforts on our behalf. This event is Valentine themed and since Chris has such a big heart, we gave him the largest chocolate heart we could find. In addition, since he is our biggest cheerleader, the Smithtown High School East JV cheerleaders came to the event and cheered for him!
Sue Hart
Community Service Award
Golf 2011
In 2010, Sue Hart’s 3 year old nephew had passed away suddenly leaving an ache in the hearts of all who knew Tristin. Sue ran her own business, and had a family to care for, and still managed to find time to assist those in need. She believed in our mission and began gathering raffle baskets for our events, marketing to our schools and community, and just being an all around Cheerleader for us. She is always full of good ideas on how to raise money and gets the job done. Sue speaks her mind but she also speaks from her heart. So we decided to acknowledge her efforts by honoring Susan Hart for her unwavering support of our cause as we presented her with the 2011 Community Service Award. We have since established the Tristin’s Wish arm of the foundation so we can assist even more families in our community. While we have accomplished many things since our inception, all of our accomplishments have been very practical-paying mortgages, utilities, medical bills, etc. It is so nice to just be able to give joy to a family in less practical way and that is where Sue comes in. It is our hope that together we can honor Tristin’s legacy by helping those in need enjoy life a little. Sue is now a member of our Advisory Board.
Only through the tireless efforts of our volunteers can we succeed in helping those in need. At our 2011 dinner/dance, we awarded Girl scout Troop 1870, of SU 029, the SCF Community Service Award. These young ladies have helped the foundation in so many ways since our inception. From wrapping over 350 gifts for Santa to give out at our holiday breakfast, to attending this annual event at 6am to help set up the kitchen, the decorations, the North Pole, and cleaning up afterwards. As Santa’s helpers, they can be found handing out gifts, assisting the photographer, working a craft station for the children to write letters to Santa & assisting us with the Chinese auction! At the annual dinner/dance, we have a separate kids party room where these girl scouts are our babysitters & kiddie security guards to keep the kids happy and contained. They organize crafts, coloring & games for them and join them on the dance floor to keep them entertained. The Smithtown Children’s Foundation has been privileged to have their assistance & dedication in assisting our community these last four years.
GIRL SCOUT TROOP 1870
COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD
2011 DINNER / DANCE