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Mostly Cloudy 'A take-charge kind of a guy'
Joe Parisi is everywhere. You can find him working with most service organizations, clubs or associations in East Meadow.
Having moved to East Meadow in November 1982, after marrying his wife, Grace, it didn’t take Parisi very long to get acclimated into the community. Coming from Ozone Park, he said, suburbia was what they were looking for.
“When I came to East Meadow, I liked it here, it looked nice,” Parisi, 68, said. “We had plans to have a family someday and what we really thought about was the schools, we wanted to make sure we could get them into a good school district.”
After moving to another section of East Meadow in 1988, Parisi was asked to join the East Meadow Civic Association.
“The first organization that I got involved in isn’t even around anymore,” he said. “At this point, I had been in East Meadow for a while, and had read about the civic association in the local paper, so I joined.
“I remember it very clearly.”
Jump ahead more than 30 years, and Parisi has been an active member in all aspects of the East Meadow community. He’s been involved with the school board — serving as board member, vice president and president — Chamber of Commerce for roughly 12 years, East Meadow Kiwanis, the Council of East Meadow Community Organizations, Boy Scout Troop 362, and the Veterans Memorial Park Coalition. He doesn’t stop with the community though, he also lends his time to the Nassau Parks Conservancy.
His drive to make a change, the initiatives he takes, and his natural leadership qualities are the reasons the Herald is proud to name him its 2022 Person of the Year.
Joe met Grace Poma in Ozone Park when they were children. Growing up, he was friends with her brother, Frank.
“I married the girl next door,” Parisi said. “One day at a barbecue, (Frank) kept bossing Grace around and I was like, ‘Frank would you stop bossing her around? If you need something I’ll help you,’ and then I realized I liked Grace.”
Now, Grace is one of his biggest supporters and always goes with him when he’s attending an event.
“I’ve been married to Joe for 40 years,” Grace, 62, said. “He is so caring, and kind, and patient, and he cares so strongly about East Meadow.”
Grace said it wasn’t a surprise when Joe started getting involved in the community.
“Joe has always been the kind to get involved and make time for everybody,” she said. “He is really a true leader. As soon as he joins an organization, I know he is going to get into a leadership position.
“He’s always been the type to spearhead things. It’s just his personality, even as a dad and a husband. He is a take charge kind of guy.”
His community involvement was done while being a hands-on family man with four children, Joseph, now 33, Valentina, 31, Christian, 29, and Marietta, 25.
After he joined the civic association, he became involved with the Council of East Meadow Community Organizations. Norma Gonsalves, the founder and past president of CEMCO, asked him to join as a delegate from St. Raphael’s Roman Catholic Parish. After Gonsalves became Legislator for the 13th district in 1997, Parisi took over as president and has been in charge ever since.
“I just wanted to help the community,” Joe said. “I’ve always had a civic interest and wanted to try to make things better and do different things.”
One of his biggest projects through CEMCO helps show what a true environmentalist he is. He helped transform the Nassau County storm recharge basin behind Senator Speno Memorial Park into a bird sanctuary home to over 50 species of wildlife. The project was a partnership between the county and the Council in 1997. At the time, he was also involved with Boy Scout Troop 362 because of his sons, and they helped as well by building bird houses and animal shelters.
Since then, volunteers help clean it twice a year to preserve the area for its bird, turtle, frog and snake inhabitants.
“The bird sanctuary was a good accomplishment for the community,” Joe said. “There's a nature preserve here. It was a fair amount of effort and it’s been almost 30 years of work. But it’s the cleanest it has ever been.”
Over the years, East Meadow Kiwanis joined the cleanup effort to give CEMCO some helping hands, but it wasn't until 2018 that Joe joined the club. Now, he is president-elect, set to take over from current president Diane Krug next October.
“I’d always liked the work that Kiwanis did and I would help out with the senior citizen and military member Thanksgiving event,” Parisi said. “I didn't join Kiwanis until I had the time to give to it.”
Grace knew he would wind up taking a leadership position. “I’m not surprised that now he’s president-elect,” Grace said. “But I’m proud of him.”
“Joe has always been active in the community, always making the East Meadow community a better place to be,” Krug said. “He's always ready to collaborate, to make things better, and he’s probably one of the most efficient people that I have ever had the pleasure of working with.”
His environmentalism doesn’t stop with the bird sanctuary. When Community Pride Day was first created, Joe suggested that trees be planted for every year.
“I said why don’t we do that because when the festivities are over, the trees will remain,” Joe said. “It sort of became a tradition and a lot of the trees you see at Speno Park today are because of that.”
On top of that, the Council helps maintain a berm site that they adopted in 1993 on the corner of Bellmore Avenue and North Jerusalem Road.
His involvement with the Veterans Memorial Park Coalition for the past four years helped bring new life to the park. He and other members, Richie Krug Jr., Frank Camarano, and Ted Rosenthal worked to have bocce courts installed, and are working on other projects.
“My passion is the environment,” Parisi said. “I think we need to do more.”
Being part of multiple organizations is what helps the community get things done. Each organization helps the other to accomplish their projects and there’s something for everyone who wants to get involved, Parisi said
“You don’t have to do great things, but there are a variety of things you can work on if you just get involved,” he said. “With Kiwanis, if you’re someone who thinks there’s a big problem with food insecurity, you can get involved with our food drives. If you think East Meadow needs more beautification, you can get involved with CEMCO.
"You don't have to change the world in one fell swoop, but you can make contributions.”
