Many communities have street fairs; they have them every year. Many businesses, vendors, and elected officials try to make as many as they can and sometimes have to pick and choose which ones to get to. The Messenger is one of those businesses. We participate because it is literally our own communities just as much as it is the communities we cover.
The Nesconset Street Festival held on August 25 was our eighth street fair this summer. We very often see many of the same people, with some changing faces but in similar roles, such as the organizers of each event. In Nesconset we saw Rachel Morreale (pictured below center), the president of their local chamber of commerce and Suffolk County Clerk Vincent Puleo (R-Nesconset), past President of Chamber, and their hired event coordinator Jennifer Dickson of Arcadia Productions. They put together a great event which ran very smoothly, so huge shout out to them! It is significant work to pull off a successful street fair. Nesconset also enjoys the benefit of the beautiful gazebo and park. It takes the traditional, linear, hot pavement street fair to a whole shady-picnic-like new level.
Similarly at every event – we see so many familiar faces, from our officers of the Suffolk County Police Department, the elected officials, the vendors, and even the attendees. They all come every year like clockwork. One can say that the fair seems almost canned, just a repeat of the year before, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Every year has its own great, electric energy in the air while still having a sense of familiarity and community. People will attend looking for that same vendor or food truck they enjoyed the year before. Some go for what they know and some try something new every year.
One thing in particular really stood out to me this year as our booth was stationed across from Suffolk County Legislator Leslie Kennedy (R-Nesconset), along with her husband John Kennedy (R-Nesconset), who is our County Comptroller. I watched for quite some time how they interact with, well, pretty much everyone. John and Leslie, who are some of the hardest working electeds we have ever seen, were there at the festival, all day, but not really representing themselves so much as they were there with the New York Blood Center. They always ensure the bloodmobile is at the street fairs, but moreso, they actively – and I cannot emphasize how actively – they passionately encouraged every person to take a few minutes to donate blood if they can. And they were successful in getting many to donate: twenty-four pints, and 2,000 pints to date since they started about two decades ago.
Across the street to our left was Senator Mario Mattera (R-St. James). You could see he just knew everyone, talked with everyone and not just an exchange of pleasantries. No one was a stranger to him. He really knew them and the issues important to them. He had many visibly significant and lengthy conversations with people, and you can see that Mario was enjoying every minute of it.
As a newspaper, we cover Senator Mattera and the Kennedys a lot so of course we have a relationship with them but that does not diminish the obvious connection they have to the community they represent and the respect they have earned. They are everything you want to see in your local elected officials.
Overall we love street fairs, the food is great, the atmosphere is fun, and some beautiful dogs are on the parade, but it all really comes down to the people. We always leave the day with a new set of friends who by chance got assigned the spaces next to us. Rob and Tammy Ball of New York Life were awesome neighbors and I know we will see them again. We truly appreciated the people who will come to tell us they love our paper. One gentleman I met last year at this same fair with his wife and two kids stopped by our booth again this year with his wife and three kids. We saw people who we learned got a clean bill of health since we saw them last year. We learned about another couple we have seen at the last few street fairs that their beloved dog of seventeen years passed away and our hearts broke for them. We shared in the excitement of the small children getting ready for their upcoming new school year. These are things that connect us. These are the things that never get old.
We even handed out a few newspapers.
