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Mostly Cloudy Lynbrook names Man and Woman of the Year
2016 winners are a couple who met in Lynbrook church youth group as teenagers
The Village of Lynbrook honored its Man and Woman of the Year on June 20 — an accolade that celebrates people who are active in the community and passionate about what they do.
“I got the phone call when I was on a business trip,” Todd Slattery said of learning he and his wife had been named Man and Woman of the Year. “[I said] OK, on what basis?”
Todd and his wife, Christine Slattery, met as teenagers at the St. James United Methodist Church’s youth group. Though they lived outside Lynbrook for a few years after their marriage in 1997, the Slattery family returned to move into Todd’s childhood home on Vincent Avenue, with their two children, Kirsten, 14, and Aidan, 13 in 2004.
“Christine was fun; she was irreverent,” Todd said of meeting his wife. “She was always the loud one. She was into the alternative music of the day, and she had a big pink streak in her hair.”
Todd was a scholar athlete, class president and captain of the wrestling team. Christine said they were “very different people,” and Todd joked that they “must have been curious.”
Both Todd, 42, and Christine, 46, were very involved in the church community growing up in Lynbrook, which motivated them to continue their involvement as parents.
“It was really, first of all, for our children,” Christine said. “[And] the church had such trouble struggling.”
Todd became a trustee at the congregation in 2005, tasked with managing their finances, and Christine has focused on making Sunday school more accessible and fun for children, as well as creating events that benefit the whole community.
“At the smaller churches, it’s not an option,” Todd said. “If you sit back and you wait for somebody else to do something it may not happen.”
Boy Scouts Troop 336 has helped the church tremendously, according to Todd, and will often call him up to see what they need. Recent projects the scouts have helped with include organizing the purchase of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), a CPR training course and converting old storage rooms into functional Sunday school classrooms.
Todd has also worked to transform the space at St. James to be more attractive to other community groups, which bring people into the church and helps generate revenue through hall rentals. The church currently has the largest movie screen in Lynbrook (while construction of the new Regal Theater is underway), because Todd installed a 200-inch high definition projector. This allows the church to have family movie nights and activities they couldn’t normally have.
The Slatterys also transformed the church’s “coffee hour,” after mass on Sunday, into a much bigger event than it previously was. Todd budgeted for a new coffee center and a renovated kitchen area to better utilize the space.
“Now everybody bakes stuff on Sunday,” Christine said, “and people will gather and socialize for up to two hours after mass ends.”
“Right now we have members from Malverne, Valley Stream, East Rockaway, but also Deer Park and Hicksville,” Todd said. “Once they got to know the church — for one reason or another — they come out and they stick with it.”
The Slatterys said they hope to continue to introduce new programs and grow the church in the future. Christine said her goal is to make Sunday school fun and accessible for children who have a lot of other activities to choose from.
Todd said he recently networked with St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Rockville Centre, and learned about a program they have called “blessing of the beasts,” where people bring their pets to church to be blessed.
“The kids love it,” Todd said. “I’d like to do that program.”
