_________________ FREEPORT _________________
HERALD
Your Friendly Neighborhood Property Tax Reducer
DEADLINE EXTENDED
$1.00
Rice won’t run for Congress next term
Page 5
Page 14
Vol. 87 No. 8
18/21 itc FG Demi Condensed
Sign up today. It only tak Apply online at mptrg es seconds. .com/heraldnote or call 516.479.9171
Hablamos Español
Page xx
Maidenbaum Propert y Tax Reduction Gro up, LLC 483 Chestnut Street, Cedarhurst, NY 11516
FEBRUARY 17 - 23, 2022
1111 114 142 0288
Black history: the 6888th Battalion
THE LEADER IN PROP ERTY TAX REDUCTION
Helping people with disabilities lifts economy By REINE BETHANY rbethany@liherald.com
Reine Bethany/Herald
AT AHRC IN Freeport on Feb. 10 were, from left, State Assemblywoman Judy Griffin; Stanfort J. Perry, executive director of AHRC Nassau; Michael Seereiter, president and CEO of the New York Alliance for Inclusion and Innovation; State Sen. John Brooks; Assemblywoman Taylor Darling; and Maureen O’Brien, president and CEO of New York State Industries for the Disabled.
The remarkable benefit to New York State’s economy that results from providing services for people with disabilities was the topic of a news conference in Freeport on Feb. 10. Officials of the State Legislature gathered with disability services leaders at the AHRC Nassau Freeport Work Center on Hanse Avenue, which has been a training and employment center for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities for half a century. The conference’s purpose
was to call attention to a December report released by the Rockefeller Institute entitled, “The Role of Disability Service Providers in the New York State Economy.” The report showed the positive economic impacts of both the Preferred Source program — a model for ensuring that people with disabilities have employment opportunities — and the larger nonprofit service delivery system for New Yorkers with disabilities that is supported by the State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities. Maureen O’Brien, president Continued on page 11
AHRC, a hidden community gem in Freeport By REINE BETHANY rbethany@liherald.com
Of the many gems in Freeport, one of the most worthy is the AHRC Nassau Work Center, which has operated at 230 Hanse Ave. since about 1970. “The idea, when the Work Center opened, was to change people’s perception of individuals with disabilities,” said spokeswoman Mary McNamara, AHRC Nassau’s director of community resources. “But even more, the idea was to give them a job and a paycheck, because they could work, and they wanted to work, and everyone knows what having a paycheck does for your
self-worth.” For decades, the Work Center employed more than 300 people with disabilities, doing packaging and assembly jobs sent to the site from Long Island employers. The concept was to create a place where employees with disabilities could work without encountering the prejudices and discomfort they faced in the business world — a “sheltered workshop.” I n m o r e r e c e n t t i m e s, explained Barry Donowitz, AHRC Nassau’s associate executive director of administration and business services, concepts of employing people with disabilities have expanded and
changed. “‘Sheltered workshop’ is a term we would never use anymore,” Donowitz said. “The focus is on community employment and people being part of the community, not segregated from the community.” Nowadays, though the Work Center still employs people with disabilities for assembly and packaging — for example, dental kits for health care product distributor Henry Schein Inc. — it has expanded its services to include two main components: day habilitation and prevocational training. “Day habilitation is basically teaching people life skills, like cooking, for example, or engag-
ing socially — things like that,” Donowitz explained. “The adults who come to day hab are people with great needs who aren’t likely to progress toward working. Prevocational is focused on work, on what skills you need to be ready to work, to have a job, with less focus on socializing, except as needed to have certain social skills to function in the
work setting.”
Working at AHRC
On site at the Work Center, Supervisor Cesar Fuentes led the way into a room where about 20 masked employees were finishing up the day’s work. “Over here, we’re finishing packaging of Schein dental boxes,” Fuentes Continued on page 16