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VOL. 21 NO. 17
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APRIL 22 - 28, 2021
Special needs, special players East Meadow’s Challenger League season has begun By JENNIFER CORR jcorr@liherald.com
Jennifer Corr/Herald
CHRISTE BUONO, 26, a member of the Ducks, got his bat on the ball. The East Meadow Baseball Softball Association’s Challenger division offers teens and young adults with special needs the chance to play baseball.
A mask couldn’t hide the fact that Lee Cook, the director of the East Meadow Baseball Softball Association’s Challenger League, was in his glory, riding a golf cart from one baseball field to another last Sunday morning, the first day of the season. The Challenger program is designed for children, teenagers and young adults with special needs. It consists of five teams of players whose skills vary widely. The program,
which is free, was founded by Cook in 1988. “This is the first day of our spring season, and it’s going g reat,” said Cook. “They would’ve played last week, but [not with] the rain.” “I’ll take you from field to field and show you different levels,” he told a Herald reporter, steering his cart toward a field that is named after him. “This is my entry-level team. This is my Yankees team.” On the field, near Merrick Avenue, players of all ages stood ready at their positions, CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
E.M. Daisies learn importance of ‘little acts of kindness’ By LAURA LANE llane@liherald.com
East Meadow Daisy Sky Bruzgis, a Barnum Woods kindergartner, gave it everything she had as she dragged her green plastic wagon filled with bags of food into McVey Elementary School. She was dressed for the occasion, wearing, under her blue Girl Scout vest, a sequined shirt that sparkled. She and other scouts from East Meadow Daisy Troop 1119 were there to drop off donated Girl Scout cookies, but Sky, 5, had asked members of her extended family to donate other items, too. All of the donations were for the
McVey Mighty Kind Market, a food pantry that the school’s principal, Kerry Anne Dunne, started last May after seeing a need in the community created by the coronavirus pandemic. “I can’t believe how big that wagon is and how much is in it,” said Allison Vardakis, one of the troop’s cookie moms. “Ms. Dunne turned our whole gym into a food pantry. It’s amazing what she did there. And they’re still getting emails weekly from people in the community in need of food.” The members of Daisy Troop 1119, all kindergartners from McVey except for Sky, had arrived last Friday to deliver 28
boxes of Girl Scout cookies that had been donated by people as “gifts of caring” during the troop’s individual and drivethrough cookie sales in March. Traditionally, scouts sell the cookies outside grocery stores or in malls, or go door to door. But because they were constrained by the pandemic, the Girl Scouts of Nassau County gave the Daisies permission to hold a drivethrough sale at Veterans Memorial Park. Vardakis said that she and Julie Leake, another cookie mom, thought it was important for the girls to know where the donated cookies were going. They also donate to troops over-
seas, but the girls don’t get to see that, Vardakis said. Sky’s mother, Maria Bruzgis, said she didn’t know the McVey pantry existed. “You just don’t know how many people in the community need help,” she said, adding that she grew up in East Meadow. “We should do this all the time with the girls. Sky was excited to come here and donate.”
Originally, the girls were only going to drop off the cookies, but some, like Sky, asked if they could bring other items too. Troop Co-leader Kim Gonzalez reached out to Amanda Napolitano, the school social worker, and Napolitano emailed her a list of the items the pantry needed. Napolitano also asked if the DaiCONTINUED ON PAGE 10