Cheryl Echevarria is blind and might not be able to sightsee like everyone else, yet this intrepid Brentwood woman loves to travel. She relies on her service dog, Maxx, her heightened sense of smell, touch and sound and the confidence that comes from traveling often. Born with Type 1 diabetes, Cheryl was 22 years old [...]
Since Mattel created Barbie more than half a century ago, the iconic doll has dabbled in more than 90 careers. She has always been ahead of her time, breaking the glass ceiling way before many people even knew there was one. Barbie is back in the news again in a big way. She has people [...]
Peter DeGennaro was 28 years old and dying from terminal brain cancer. His last wish was to visit his grandfather who lived in New Jersey, but Peter was from Maine and was too sick to travel by car or board a commercial airline. How Peter got to fulfill his wish is an uplifting story that [...]
Audrey Lewis has devoted her life to serving others. A retired Gulf War veteran, Audrey was a supply sergeant in the 140th field service in the U.S. Army. When she returned to civilian life on Long Island, she became active in the non-profit community, as a volunteer and as recruitment director at Life’s Worc in Garden [...]
Kathleen Gallina discovered early on that she has a knack for training dogs. Growing up in Bay Shore, she was always feeding and taking in strays. When she was just 16, she rescued a dog tied up with a telephone cord, and took care of the neglected animal until she could find the dog a [...]
One of the sweetest sounds is the laughter of children playing, an echo of what childhood should always be like —a carefree time. But it’s not quite the same for children with autism who have problems communicating and relating to others because they tend to lack certain social skills. For these children, playing with others [...]
Maria Fiore is a special education teacher in the Great Neck school district and lives in Syosset with her husband, Michael and their three children, Isabella, age 6 and twins, Anthony and Ava, age 4. When Bella was about 18 months old, Maria took her to a “mommy and me” class at a local Gymboree [...]
Last October just as Lori Ames, her husband and her only child, Robert, 22, were leaving on a much-needed vacation, Robert said he wasn’t feeling well. Thinking Robert might have a virus, she called his father to pick him up and Lori and her husband continued on their trip to Las Vegas. When she landed, [...]
When attending an event at a performing arts center, we usually don’t think about production costs. Most of us assume the price of our ticket covers expenses. In reality, most arts centers cannot survive solely on ticket sales; they rely on a development director to procure financing through the creation of a strategic plan for [...]
If courage means being unwavering in the face of adversity, then Joyce Glicker of Huntington is the embodiment of a courageous person. I’ve known Joyce casually through acquaintances for nearly a dozen years. Her husband, Dave, worked at 92.7 WLIR when I first started with the company, and I learned later that Joyce had been [...]
