______________ VALLEY STREAM _____________
your HEALTH body / mind / fitness
November 18, 2021
With a focus on
Heal thy Holid ays
HERALD Here’s to healthy holidays Inside
W,C,E
$1.00
Vol. 32 No. 47
Blakeman wins county exec. race
V.S. firefighters douse house fire
Page 4
Page 15
NoVEMBER 18 - 24, 2021
Valley Streamer wants brother’s memorial restored came late evening when the police knocked at the door to re por t that John, 15, had The story Gregory Balestrieri drowned. recounts of his older brother, “My Mom was screaming John Balestrieri, dates back 50 when she heard the news . . . the years. The year was 1971, and family was a wreck,” Gregory John, a student at North High said. The sudden and untimely School in Valley Stream, crowd- death of his older brother struck ed into a car with a Gregory to his core couple of his friends as he plunged into as they embarked on grief and silence. He a summer camping went without food trip in the village of for a week, numb Ellenville in upstate and empty of life. He New York. It was was 11. just your run-of-the“ I w a s l i ke a mill guys’ getaway, mummy,” Gregory little more than a said. “I told my fun, adventurous brother Ralph that moment in the life w e w e ’ r e n e ve r of an American going to be happy for teenager. the rest of our lives. G r e g o r y, 6 1 , I’ll never forget I remembered that said that.” GREGoRy their mother, Mary John was rememBalestrieri, tried to BalEStRiERi bered as an excellent s t o p Jo h n f r o m Resident junior-varsity pitchgoing, but once his er at North High and father, Salvatore Bala player for the Malestrieri, gave the OK, John said verne Little League, making the good-bye and disappeared with All-Star team at the Pony League his friends. He never came back. at 13. “My brother was a very At one moment, all seemed right good athlete,” Gregory said. with life, as is often the case, “When he had his wake, stuwhen at the next, the unthink- dents from the high school filled able happened. Nothing fore- the funeral parlors, and the warned the Balestrieri family whole baseball team from the about the specter of something terrible to come, but tragedy Continued on page 12
By JuaN laSSo jlasso@liherald.com
i
Juan Lasso/Herald
DR. CHiDuBEM iloaBaCHiE, LIJ’s associate chair of emergency medicine, received food from Jaime Parra and Luis Payano, owners of La Villa Grill, as part of the hospital’s recently launched restaurant partnership.
LIJ Valley Stream launches restaurant recovery By JuaN laSSo jlasso@liherald.com
The coronavirus pandemic disrupted the operational status quo of many businesses, but few have been as severely hit as the restaurant industry. While dine-in restrictions have been lifted and people are starting to eat out again, recovering restaurants are dogged by a new set of challenges, including inflated food prices and staff and supply shortages. In the steep climb
out of an eighteen-month economic slowdown, government help has been limited locally. Only 12 percent of Long Island’s restaurants and dining establishments secured federal grants from the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. But the pandemic has opened new avenues for generosity and community-centered responses that have proven critical in reeling businesses back from the brink of bankruptcy. That is the heart of the Small Business Res-
cue Initiative at Valley Stream Long Island Jewish hospital, a Northwell Health institution. Four hundred thousand dollars in in-house food and catering services will instead be allocated to pay struggling restaurants on Long Island and Queens to prepare food for the hospital’s staff and catering events. The list spans eateries from Lynbrook and Elmont to Franklin Square Continued on page 9
told my brother Ralph that we we’re never going to be happy for the rest of our lives.