2022 HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our readers
_______________
______________
For BrEAKING
NEWS
HERALD 2021
go to liherald.com
YEAR IN REVIEW
$1.00
What’s
INSIDE INSIDE
east meadow
DECEMBER 30, 2021 - JANuARY 5, 2022
VOl. 22 NO. 1
A leader with a ‘heart of gold’
By Mallory Wilson
mwilson@liherald.com
L Courtesy Legislator John Ferretti xx/Herald
xx Johnny Ferretti with Benny, the inspiration for Benny’s Law. Page 0
Page 3
Laura Lane/Herald xx/Herald
Fire damaged stores in the strip mall xx
on Carman Avenue in Salisbury, Page 0
Page 4
Courtesy Melinda xx/Herald Geraghty
Ryan and Amelia Geraghty in the xx
library’s updated children’s room. Page 0
Page 16
iz Fries is described by those who know her as a woman with a big heart. There are few who can say they are as involved in their communities as Fries. Joining the East Meadow Kiwanis Club in 2000 led to a new world of community involvement for her. Fries, 69, has truly made the community “a better place to live and work,” David Rothman, a fellow Kiwanian, said. Her hard work, dedication and volunteerism is why the East Meadow Herald is proud to name Liz Fries the East Meadow Person of the Year for 2021. “Liz is just one of those people who does not look for accolades,” Rothman said. “She does what she does to make people’s lives in the community and the surrounding communities better.” Rothman has known Fries for more than 20 years. “She’s just a do-gooder,” he said. Fries grew up in the Bronx and moved to East Meadow in 1975 when she started her family. She has two grown children, James Fries and Elizabeth LeDoux, who lives in Massachusetts with her children, Samuel and Vivien LeDoux, 14. Fries became a legislative aide to Nassau County Legislator Norma Gonsalves, of East Meadow, in 1998, after she was first elected. Gonsalves was named the Legislature’s presiding officer in 2012, and Fries continued working for Gonsalves, becoming her executive director, until Gonsalves stepped down from her post in 2018, after 20 years of service. Fries had originally studied to be a teacher at Adelphi University but never finished her degree because she started a family. She held numerous jobs with multiple attorneys before working for Gonsalves, including at the Garden City firm Mahon, Mahon, Mahon, run by a father and two sons, where she worked
HERALD PERSON OF THE YEAR
Liz Fries
s ‘
he’s done so much good.’
JenniFer reinhardt
President, East Meadow Kiwanis
for almost a decade. While working with them, she earned her paralegal diploma with honors in legal research from Adelphi University in the mid-1990s.
“It takes a while to know where you’re going in life,” Fries said. “While I was in high school at Preston High School in the Bronx, one of the nuns said to me, ‘You’re not going to be a teacher, you’re going to do something in law,’ and she was right.” Fries said her many years working with attorneys helped her make the move to government service. Since 2018, she has been chief of staff to State Assemblyman John Mikulin. “Everything in law is different and you learn something new every day,” she said. “That’s what I like about it. She joined East Meadow Kiwanis Club in May 2000 while working for Gonsalves. Her first role was as newsletter editor. “I had no idea at all what the club was about, and it was mostly men at the time,” Fries said.“... Norma said, ‘You have to join this group,’ and I just thought it was a good idea to be involved somehow and to do something.” Fries was active in the club, becoming its second female president in 2007. “It was scary,” she said. “Every woman in the Long Island South Central Division came to support me.” She has chaired multiple committees in Kiwanis, including the holiday food basket assembly and delivery effort, East Meadow Pride Day and the East Meadow Kiwanis/Borrelli’s annual holiday luncheon for families, which she said is her favorite activity. She is also the East Meadow Kiwanis school liaison. “She’s done so much good in this community and beyond,” East Meadow Kiwanis President Jennifer Reinhardt said. “...She has many Kiwanis awards and accolades, and we’re so proud of her.” For the 2021-22 Kiwanis year, Fries is the lieutenant governor of the Long Continued on page 14 Courtesy Jennifer Reinhardt
Liz Fries, Kiwanis Club’s Long Island South Central Division lieutenant governor, left, wtih Jennifer Reinhardt, the East Meadow Kiwanis president.