Freeport
CoMMunity uPdAte infections as of nov. 30
2,283
infections as of nov. 23 2,173
HERALD Leader
Freeporter dies in park shooting
Archer street hosts trukey trot
Community unites for those in need
Page 4
Page 5
Page 10
$1.00
deCeMBer 3 - 9, 2020
Vol. 85 no. 49
Dodd principal publishes self-help book few years later, her doctors told her that her cyst had shrunk and her overall health had It was August 2016 when improved. Ligondé, the Johane Ligondé principal of J.W. suddenly lost conDodd Middle School sciousness while in Freeport, who cleaning her home. a l s o wo rk s a s a Shortly afterward, yoga and meditashe visited a neuroltion teacher, recento gist, underwent ly launched an several MRI and CT e-book that descans, and learned scribes to readers that there was a colthe seven activities loid cyst, a benign that she did every tumor, in her brain. day that contributLigondé, a Balded to her improved win resident and health. More than a Freeport educator, do z en people atbe g an practicing tended the launch what her meditaMiA CAMPBell party via Zoom on tion teachers had Nov. 27. taught her for years Yoga teacher “After trying dif— breathing conferent activities, I sciously, moving her body, connecting with oth- discovered seven things I did
By Bridget downes bdownes@liherald.com
g
Ronny Reyes/Herald
dArrell green, leFt, an NFL Hall of Famer and vice president of strategic marketing for Halodine, handed a box of the company’s antiseptic products to combat Covid-19 to bus driver Aaron Champagne, of Oceanside.
A safer ride to school
Bus drivers, monitors offered extra protection By ronny reyes rreyes@liherald.com
When schools were forced to shut down in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, bus drivers and monitors were among those heavily affected by the closures. Corey Muirhead, vice president of the Guardian Bus Company, said he had a difficult time laying off drivers and monitors amid the health and economic crisis. Guard-
ian serves school districts in Freeport, Bellmore-Merrick, Oceanside and East Meadow. “We had to let them go, and they didn’t have health benefits amid a global pandemic,” Muirhead said. “The most nerve-racking thing was dealing with the unknown. We had no idea how long this would last or when they could come back.” Rosa Somra, a driver in East Meadow, said the layoffs were rough on her and her colleagues, and they were
happy to return to work and adapt to the “new normal” when schools reopened in the fall. Muirhead, a Long Beach native, said he wanted to do right by his employees, so the Guardian Bus Company partnered with Halodine, a company founded by doctors to produce antiseptics that kill Covid-19, to donate 600 oral antiseptic sprays and 600 sixpack nasal swabs to more than Continued on page 3
etting to see this project reach this stage and be able to reach so many people; it just excites me.
ers and volunteering more. A
Continued on page 15
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.