Baldwin
HERALD
CoMMuNIty uPDAtE Infections as of Dec. 7
1,367
Infections as of Nov. 30 1,271
LOOk iNSide
Holiday wrapping Paper Contest drawn by our young readers
Students learn about drones
Donate to holiday toy drives
School nurses named heroes
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DECEMBER 10 - 16, 2020
Vol. 27 No. 50
Business owner talks struggles, successes By BRIDgEt DowNES bdownes@liherald.com
Courtesy Baldwin School District
Sharing is caring Teachers, parents and administrators of Brookside Elementary School, including Principal Unal Karakas, right, contributed to a food drive for Island Harvest. Story, more photos, Page 10.
A holiday tradition lives on
Christmas tree is taller than Rockefeller Center’s By BRIDgEt DowNES bdownes@liherald.com
Usually around this time of year, neighbors gather near the massive Christmas tree outside Joan Giles’s house in Baldwin to ring in the holiday season with a lighting ceremony. And while the ceremony wasn’t a go this year for safety precautions, the tree — which stands more than 80 feet tall, taller than the Rockefeller Center
Christmas tree in Manhattan — was still decorated and lit. “I said, ‘You know, Mom, I think the neighborhood needs this this year — I think everybody needs it this year — something to make them smile and something to bring a little bit of happiness,” said Giles’s daughter, Katie, who lives in England, “because this year has been horrible and stressful for everybody.” Katie said her mother was
considering not decorating the tree this year, since she and her sister, Liz, who lives in Morocco, wouldn’t be visiting for the holidays because of the coronavirus pandemic. They could see photos of it, though, so they encouraged her to continue with the tree tradition, adding that everyone could use “a little bit of hope” this year. The tree has been a Giles family tradition for eight years now, Continued on page 4
A Baldwin business owner recently shared her struggles and s u c c e s s e s throughout the last nine months of the pandemic as a panelist at the 19th annual Long Island Smart Growth Summit, a three-day conference that took place vir tually this year. The summit, which brings t o g e t h e r c iv i c groups, chambers of commerce, elected officials, developers and
o
ne of the big drivers for us, and why we’re still here, is the community.
ANtoINEttE BuRRowS
Sweet & Savory Café owner
other professionals, was “an event that takes on more importance as we seek to assist our local communities through economic recovery guided by place-making principles,” organizers said in a statement. The program featured discussions and workshops on Zoom to address regional and local issues associated with downtown redevelopment, regulatory relief and economic recovery amid the Covid-19 crisis. Continued on page 3
Our COvid-19 traCker With the Covid-19 test positivity rate rising across the country, the Herald is adding a weekly coronavirus tracker to the upper-left corner of our front page to help you gauge what’s happening in your area from week to week. the number is an aggregate of the communities that this newspaper covers. data is obtained from the nassau County Covid-19 dashboard, which provides the total number of cases reported in an area since the start of the pandemic, and is updated regularly.