Nicks seeks to serve Hempstead

Dem challenges Clavin for supervisor

BY KARINA KOVAC

Olena Nicks has been serviceoriented since she was a teenager educating her peers through Planned Parenthood. During high school she continued helping her community of Uniondale by joining the fire department, rising through ranks to become the first woman captain of the Manor Company for a term.

Now, she’s setting her sights on the Town of Hempstead supervisor seat to expand her outreach by addressing the township’s housing crisis, water quality and making it easier for small businesses to launch.

Nicks, a lifelong Uniondale resident, is running as a Democrat on the Working Families Party line.

She’s challenging Republican incumbent Don Clavin on the ballot in the upcoming town elections Nov. 7.

Participants play in a tennis doubles match in a tournament fundraiser for Drew Hassenbein and Ethan Falkowitz, two teens and rising tennis stars killed in a car crash in May.

BY CAMERYN OAKES

At the 2022 Nassau County Doubles Championship, Roslyn High School’s Drew Hassenbein and Gavin Koo battled it out against Wheatley’s Aaron Raja and Kavin Shukla, securing a win for Roslyn at the competitive tennis match.

Raja, a friend of Hassenbein, reflected fondly on the match that had no impact on their friendship.

“We had a dog fight, a three-hour final match, and we left it all on the court but then we were friends right after,” Raja said.

In the wake of Hassenbein dying with fellow teammate Ethan Falkowitz after a car crash in May, Raja took that memory of playing a doubles match against his friend and turned it into a doubles tournament fundraiser that would preserve the legacy of the late teens.

Raja, an incoming senior at The

Wheatley School and a varsity tennis player, organized a tennis tournament at The Wheatley School Thursday to raise money for the teens and to honor the two tennis players who had a resounding impact on their community.

More than $1,000 was raised, Raja said, and more donations are expected to total $1,500.

The money raised will be donated evenly to the The Drew Hassenbein Foundation and Ethan Falkowitz’s GoFundMe.

Hassenbein and Falkowitz, both 14, were killed May 3 while being driven home from a tennis match celebration.

Their car was hit by Roslyn resident Amandeep Singh, who prosecutors allege was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine and driving 95 mph on the wrong side of the road.

Raja was close friends with Hassenbein and had played tennis with him since he started at the age of nine. He said they both trained at Robbi Wagner’s tennis training center, which is where the their friendship and friendly tennis rivalry began.

Three days before Hassenbein’s death, Raja and Hassenbein had battled against one another in a high school tennis match.

After losing his friend, Raja began planning a fundraiser for the teens. He presented the idea to his school’s athletic director, who approved the tournament event.

Since it was close to the conclusion of the school year, and Raja had to secure permits for the event, the fundraiser was delayed until August. This also helped increase attendance, Raja said, as students would be returning from summer camps and be local again.

The event was supported by Raja, as well as student volunteers Riya Mittle, Liel Agajan and Rahul Dawar.

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Clavin has been the Town of Hempstead supervisor since November 2019. He was elected to this position in 2019 and is currently serving his second term. Before becoming supervisor of the largest township in New York, Clavin served as the receiver of taxes for the town for nearly two decades.

The Town of Hempstead is the largest among the three towns in Nassau County, encompassing North Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Hempstead and 22 incorporated villages. The combined population of these areas reached 793,409 as of the 2020 census, establishing Hempstead as the most populous town in the state.

“From the moment I graduated high school, and even really before then, I started a lot of work within the community because all around me there was much work that needed to be done,” said Nicks.

As a teenager, she began her mission to help her community early on. “At 14, I started working at Planned Parenthood as a teen advocate,” she said, where she provided education to help prevent and lower teen pregnancies and STD rates in the area. Uniondale High School was an abstinence-only practicing school.

After high school, Nicks joined the Uniondale Fire Department, where she was the first woman captain of Manor Company 3, after serving in multiple positions over a 12-year span. “So, a huge accomplishment to, of course, breaking the glass ceiling,” she said about her journey that started as a secretary.

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