Mrs. George O'Neill again hosted the kickoff for the Community Foundation of Oyster Bay (CFOB) annual appeal at her home on Jan. 30. She and her husband are members of the CFOB board. David H. Deming is board president; Mrs. Paul McNicol is vice president; Mrs. Augusta Reese Donohue is secretary; Mrs. William E. Sheeline is assistant secretary; Joseph T. Donohue, Jr. is treasurer and David B. Townsend is the assistant treasurer.

This year the foundation hopes to raise $210,000. Mrs. O'Neill said that last year was the first time the foundation didn't reach its goal figure. She said, "We were not the only one who didn't," but added that they used their Endowment Fund, which she called "substantial" to get over the gap adding that it was created for that purpose. "This was a problem year. Much funding hasn't come through and there was a short fall." She said, the Endowment Fund helped see that the Youth & Family Counseling Agency of Oyster Bay-East Norwich met its payroll. The CFOB gave $135,504 to YFCA last year. Ms. O'Neill credited Wynn Powers for taking on the job of "sprucing up" the agency. "Wynn Powers is very good at that," she said.

Ms. O'Neill introduced Barbara Rakusin, who is replacing Peter Thompson, ACSW, executive director of YFCA who is retiring after 22 years with the agency. Mr. Thompson has had a private counseling practice in Hempstead in which he will continue to work.

Ms. O'Neill gave Ms. Rakusin's credits which include working with substance abuse and the way it affects families; with HIV clients; and private psychotherapy. Ms. Rakusin said, "I have big shoes to fill. I hope to see what else needs to be done, where there are gaps. I hope to increase services and funding and to find grants."

Ms. Rakusin said later that she had to be approved by Nassau County before she could be hired by YFCA. "It has been over 20 years since the YFCA had to hire a director and they discovered that the county had to approve the hiring of the new person." Since then she was interviewed by the board. She said, "They were lovely, and I got a flavor of what the agency does and what they do."

She said, "Everyone has wonderful things to say about Peter in the social work field - it's a small world - as well as good things about the agency."

Ms. O'Neill thanked Susan Sheeline and Christie McNicol for creating "the best brochure ever." She read from it, giving a picture of what the CFOB does. Originally known as The Stop Gap Fund, the CFOB was formed by a group of concerned residents headed by Ethel Roosevelt Derby to act as just that, a stopgap for people who need help during difficult times. It is the community's "bridge over troubled water." The brochure has a photograph of just that, a bridge over troubled water, taken by Hilary Armstrong.

The CFOB funds programs for Oyster Bay's eldest to youngest, from the Doubleday Babcock Senior Center (DBSC) to the YFCA which offers a wide spectrum of programs from counseling and intervention to the Parent-Child Home Program (PCHP), which provides guidance in constructive play for the underprivileged parents of young children to better prepare those children for school. The volunteers in the program bring books to the households and work with the parents. There are now two Spanish mothers who have been in the program themselves and who are working for the program.

Ms. O'Neill changed the kickoff format this year, instead of having a speaker, she turned the morning into a town meeting and asked different people to speak on their expertise. Lynn Cryer, director of the PCHP said they had a good year, helping 23 families who are of Turkish, African American and Hispanic backgrounds. The agency had two Adelphi social work interns and two paid workers on staff this year.

Ms. O'Neill asked if it had been difficult to get volunteers this year. Ms. Cryer said they took on two former program moms who were fluent in Spanish, both with some college education. Next year they will be paid, she said. "They have insight into what it is like to be from a different culture and now living in Oyster Bay," she noted.

Lynn Cryer said another benefit of the PCHP is that as the children receive services, the parents learn about what other services are available for them. The parents also learn the importance of going to school conferences and getting involved in the schools.

Another of the programs the foundation supports is the B.O.B. (Better Oyster Bay) program which provides a "safe haven" for teens and tweens in the evening during the summer months, and a conflict resolution program at the high school. Other programs such as their involvement with the Interreligious and Human Needs Council's Community Social Action Committee's toy and food distribution during the holidays means that the YFCA touches lives throughout the entire year.

The CFOB provided the seed money for the Oyster Bay Main Street Association and continues to fund it. The MSA's goal is to help revitalize the hamlet while maintaining its small-town, historical uniqueness. Joan Mahon has been their executive director for three years. She said, "There are changes you will be seeing in the parking field behind Townsend Square when the trees grow." She said the façade improvement committee has been working with businesses on signage.

New projects include the walkway at the Oyster Bay Post Office, which is part of a parking remediation plan for the hamlet. She said MSA is working with the Chamber of Commerce and the Oyster Bay Civic Association on the proposal with Chris Robinson of RMS Engineering. "We are hopeful of having the town change parking regulations from one to two hours so that people have time for lunch, etc. We are adding more shopper parking and overall are looking at the private and public lots and making them more efficient and hope to reinstate angle parking. There used to be angle parking in Oyster Bay," she said.

She said, "The three organizations will approach the town and will ask for a reduction of the reserved spaces. We are working well with the town."

"It is slow moving," said Ms. O'Neill, "we have enough parking - more than necessary, it's just how you handle it."

The CFOB supports the Hispanic Cultural Center, which serves as a home base and an information-clearing house for our growing and active Hispanic community. Ms. O'Neill said there are 15 different Hispanic groups in Oyster Bay and not all speak Spanish so there is a great need to reach out to them."

Ms. O'Neill asked Rosemary Colvin on the YFCA board about the Centro Cultural Hispanico. Ms. Colvin said they are working with the Town of Oyster Bay on getting a soccer field at Theodore Roosevelt Park. It is located east of the parking lot near the baseball field. Ms. Colvin said they have been playing soccer with the local churches using the St. Dominic fields.

"We have a very good after-school program, Care After-school Recreation and Education (C.A.R.E.) funded with grants. It is an academic enrichment program for students in K to 6 to give them a safe place after school and to help them with homework in families, many of whom are Spanish speaking and therefore have problems helping the children with their homework. The children recreate, snack and do homework. There are 65 children in the program. The school district volunteers the space and the custodial work involved. The program runs from 4 to 6 p.m.," Ms. Colvin said.

She said the after-school program at the Boys & Girls Club is too expensive for some of the students in the area. She said the C.A.R.E. after-school program works in any language needed which includes Chinese, Turkish and Polish - besides Spanish - it encompasses any child in an ESL family. Ms. Colvin is the grant writer for the program.

The CFOB also oversees the Bullock Horizon Fund, which provides music and art instruction for those who could otherwise not afford it. Mary Agosta, who has retired but returned to volunteer with YFCA talked of the Horizon Fund. "It started seven years ago in response to a need from the community to allow children in grades 3-11 who didn't have the opportunity to enhance their potential skills in art, music and science and to give them a boost," she said. YFCA board member Steven Walker works on the program. Applications are sent to the schools and they recommend students who are then interviewed to see where they can be helped. They give the students $500 for music instruction, art teachers and science programs.

They also try to help some Hispanic students with some summer sports scholarships in baseball and soccer.

Ms. Agosta said the fund is in remembrance of Len Bullock who started the agency. "He was a person who really worked with the community and had a flair for picking out kids of promise," she said.

As the meeting was coming to an end, CFOB board member Eve Bernstein, whose husband is captain of Luff Story, said, informationally, that there are cranes at Theodore Roosevelt Park, where the town is reconstructing the marina area where the slips are. There is a lot of upheaval now, she added.

Ms. O'Neill commented that, "The problem with the waterfront includes the Commander Oil terminal adding that one-third to half the oil in Nassau County comes over their docks and the trucks rumble down South Street from that established institution. It also offers a huge amount of employment in the two major businesses there."

As they talked about the health of the town, Ms. Colvin mentioned AvalonBay Communities where they propose to build 300 units on 5 1/2 acres that proposes 10 times the density of residential zoning in the area. "It is not in the downtown area," she said, although they are asking for a new downtown revitalization zone. Ms. Colvin said that Mill-Max Mfg. is open 24 hours a day and will have a problem with people moving in next door to it. She added it will overburden the school district which is presently going out for a bond issue to add to the classrooms. She said she went over the material about Avalon Bay and said, "They scewed the statistics in their presentation." She said the actual report is different than what is being stated by AvalonBay representatives and predicted that the national corporation will go to court to fight for their proposal.

Ms. O'Neill said to the women, "go to the meetings. This will take a huge amount of work to stop. It can change the whole character of Oyster Bay."

As the meeting concluded Ms. O'Neill came back to the purpose of the meeting, that the women had been invited to learn more about the work of the CFOB to help them in their letter writing campaign. She reminded them to pick up their packets. Donations to the fund can be sent to: Community Foundation of Oyster Bay, 200 Sunset Road, Oyster Bay, NY 11771.