The Levittown School District sponsored their second annual Recognition Night for Community Service this past Tuesday at the Memorial Education Center.

This awards ceremony was different from most because rather than one central panel choosing the honorees, each community service organization chose one of their members to be honored. Members from each organization spoke about the person from their group that they were honoring and the reason why that person had been chosen to receive the award. Recipients were not only honored by the school district, but by the Town of Hempstead as well. Councilwoman Linda Reed was present to award Certificates of Recognition on behalf of the town. Reed called these citizens "role models for our children."

Walter Henry, the honoree chosen by ALSA, who had been chosen the previous evening as MacArthur High School's Teacher of the Year, used a farming analogy to reiterate how important the parents and community are to the students. Henry says "The young student is the seed and the teacher is the farmer. Sometimes we forget that there's also the soil. The soil is the home, the community, and the parents. If the soil is no good then the farmer really doesn't have much of anything." He continued on to give credit to the Levittown community for bringing the children up so well.

Other award recipients included Dale Roberts, from CSEA; Maureen Fuentes, from St. Bernard's CYO; Kathleen Haslbauer, from the Girl Scouts; Mike Lozitto, from the Levittown Kiwanis Club; Diane Shapiro, from the Levittown School District; Chris Natoli, from Levittown Volunteer Ambulance Corp.; Dolph Queripel, from the Levittown Youth Council; Jean Fontana, from LUT; Jack Stein, from VFW Post 9592; and Eileen Ashley, from Yours, Ours, Mine Community Center. Roxanne Boneillo accepted an award on behalf of all PTA volunteers and Louise Cassano accepted the award from the 50th Anniversary Committee on behalf of the Steering Committee.

The Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Herman Sirois, presented the award to school board member Diane Shapiro, who had no idea until she arrived at the event that she was being honored. Sirois reminded everyone of the hours of dedication to a thankless, grueling job that the school board contributes. He added that Shapiro has served on this board longer than any other member.

Haslbauer, a Girl Scout leader for two groups was honored for her dedication to "her girls." While all Girl Scout leaders contribute to the community, Haslbauer was chosen because of the special concern that she has for her learning disabled troop. She has given those girls a chance to contribute where they may not have been able to ordinarily.

Also honored for her work with disabled children was Jean Fontana, a teacher in the Levittown School District. Fontana was the first teacher in the district to mainstream a mentally retarded student into her class. In the years that she has been teaching in Levittown she has continued to help these students and all her students. A representative from LUT described her as always being on the cutting edge of educational research.

These are all people who go out of their way to volunteer their time and energy for the Levittown community and get very little recognition. While these are not the only deserving members of the community, they are just a few who have stood out in their own organizations, as being deserving of such recognition.