East Meadow PTA

Bringing schools together, one street at a time — the PTA way

The goal of the parent teacher association is to enhance the relationship between families and the school community. And while it’s not easy to bring together nine separate schools, the East Meadow PTAs never cease to take their job seriously.

The East Meadow Council of PTAs advocates for all children in the school district, carrying on the mantra of the national PTA of “every child, one voice.” The individual school PTAs assist in building a positive relationship between home and campus life.

Aside from planning fundraisers to help schools raise money, celebrating staff members with special days dedicated to them, and addressing any issues within the schools, one major PTA event every year is Founder’s Day.

Founder’s Day is exactly that: It commemorates the founding of the PTA, recognizing those who make the PTA and its activities possible. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the beloved event was on hiatus the last couple years. So for 2022, everyone caught up to honor the Founder’s Day honorees that had yet to be recognized.

“Founder’s Day has long been one of East Meadow’s favorite PTA events,” Veronica Nicastro, past PTA Council president, said. “It is always a joy to honor those individuals who go above and beyond for our community’s children. This year in particular it being the first Founder’s Day in a few years, it feels especially special I’m sure.”

Each Founder's Day has a theme that helps solidify the district’s goals. For 2020, it was “soaring to new heights.” For the 2021 and

Mallory Wilson/Herald photos Photo: From left, Tracy Pulice, Donna Goldstein, Liz Oliva-Kong and Olga Kalogiannis made Founder's Day come together in 2022 after a two-year hiatus.

2022 Founder's Days — celebrated in one big event on May 10 — the theme was “each of us a single note, together we are in harmony.”

“Each of our honorees (have) individually contributed to the success of our PTAs, schools, community and district as a single note,” PTA Council president Donna Goldstein said. “The outcome has been a harmony that has led to them being honored tonight.”

— Mallory Wilson

Top : School staffers, community members and other important East Meadow people, are chosen to be the honorees each Founder’s Day. The point is to highlight the good they’ve done for the community. Bottom: From left, Greg Bottari, Scott Stacey, Veronica Nicastro and Richard Howard were the PTA Council’s honorees for Founder's Day in both 2021 and 2022.