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VOl. 73 NO. 52
HERALD PERSON OF THe YEAR MargareT Silberger
'There's always more to do' Kiwanis Club president reflects on decades of service, volunteering By Luke Feeney
Foundation honored heroes at Mulcahy's. Page 8
For Margaret Silberger, a lifetime of service has never been about recognition, but about the people she helps and works with. The 74-year-old retired nurse and current president of the Wantagh Kiwanis Club has dedicated herself to improving the lives of others, whether by comforting patients at their hospital bedsides or by organizing community food drives and beach cleanups. She credits her decades in nursing for being the foundation for her community work. “It was a career,” Silberger said. “It wasn’t a job.” The difference between the two, in her opinion, is that you do a job he people for a paycheck, but you make a career out of love for the work. that I That ethos of selfless care has guided volunteer with Silberger for more than 50 years in — that’s my Wantagh, where she and her husband, Jim, have lived in the same house, at the motivation. corner of Pine Street and Walters Avenue, since the 1970s. They raised their MargareT two sons in the area and built deep roots Silberger through family, faith and community President, work. Wantagh Kiwanis For all that she has done through Club the years, the Herald is proud to name Silberger its 2025 Person of the Year. She began volunteering with the Kiwanis Club nine years ago. Since then she has served in nearly every leadership role in the organization, including a year as lieutenant governor, helping to guide other clubs in the region. For the past two years she has been club president, shaping a hands-on group of volunteers known for their spring school supply drives, summer camp scholarships and the beloved annual Spring Festival. Before joining Kiwanis, Silberger recalled, she volunteered at her church, Wantagh Memorial Congregational. “I had worked on and off, part time,” she said, “depending on how things went at home.” Her work as a volunteer, she says, is driven by the people she serves alongside. “The people that I volunteer with,” Silberger said, “that’s my motivation.” She is known for her warm, can-do approach — not just rallying others to volunteer, but also meeting them where they are.
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Antique show displayed hundreds of cars. Page 13
He trekked across the state in record time. Page 16
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“The members who come down (to events) don’t have to stay the whole day,” she said. “If it’s a five-hour event, can you give us an hour? If not, can you make some cards?” She believes that everyone has something to give. “She’s very caring, very giving — she’s nonjudgmental,” her husband, the club’s secretary, said. “She just wants to see everybody do the best they can.” The two met at the Congregational Church in Rockaway Beach in 1965, married five years later, and moved to Wantagh to raise their family. Margaret had started her nursing career at Peninsula Hospital, in Far Rockaway, but switched to Mercy Hospital, in Rockville Centre, to be closer to home. “I traipsed for six years until I found a job at Mercy,” she recalled. “We had two kids. I needed to be closer.” Her decision to become a nurse traces back to when she was just 8. Her father was battling throat cancer — and it was the nurses, she remembers, who made all the difference. Her father died when she was 13, two days before his 53rd birthday. But the impact of that time would shape the rest of her life. “I watched how the nurses took care of him,” Silberger recounted. “He was receptive to them. He worked with them. And they listened — to him and to my mother. I remember
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Courtesy Margaret Silberger
Margaret Silberger, above with Judge Norman Sammut, has been involved with the Wantagh chapter of Kiwanis for the past nine years.