Longtime librarian named Person of the Year by the West Hempstead Community Support Association

A fortunate chapter in West Hempstead’s history started when the family of Regina Mascia — the West Hempstead Community Support Association’s 2019 Person of the Year — moved from Brooklyn to the community.
Mascia attended West Hempstead High School and got a part time position as a page at the library, which at the time was located at 485 Hempstead Avenue. When the library moved to 252 Chestnut Street, Mascia moved with it as a clerk. After earning her master’s degree in library science, she became the children’s librarian at the Farmingdale Public Library, then director of the Bayville Public Library all the while serving as a library trustee in West Hempstead.
In 1999, fortune again smiled on West Hempstead when Mascia brought her dedication, passion and breadth of experience back to her hometown and became the director of the West Hempstead Public Library. She had big plans for both the library and herself. Mascia became the chairwoman of the Long Island Conference Committee while coordinating the West Hempstead Library trustees, the community, the town and various contractors towards her vision of what the library should be.
Masica worked through a seven-year grueling project to plan, to vote on and to build a West Hempstead Library from the ground up. The library opened in 2007 and recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. Mascia celebrated her 20th Anniversary as director last month.
With all the energy needed to achieve this endeavor, one would think that Mascia would have not had time to spare for other projects. But this was not the case. Mascia has long managed to involve herself in community service, the only casualty of this being not her professionalism but perhaps the state of her office or “ideas platform.” She has generously devoted time and personal resources to the West Hempstead Rotary Club, now the Central Nassau County Rotary, serving as its president multiple times. She has also supported the Friends of the West Hempstead Library, the Civic Association and the Historical Society.

Despite all the hard work, there have been some truly memorable moments and some real fun. While moving the books from the 485 Hempstead Avenue location to the 252 Chestnut location, library personnel formed a human chain of adult fiction from the vehicles to the stacks. As they got to “L”, Regina alerted then Director Dan Groden that the books were misaligned as they went around the corners on the shelves. She laughed as she recalled working until midnight that night to prepare the library to open. She smiled, however, when she reflected on the night she attended a Federated Department Store function at A&S as a member of the Nassau County Library Association. As she exited, she heard her name called as the winner of the mink coat raffle.
Mascia is devoted personally to all her endeavors, but she relates that she feels the West Hempstead Public Library is by far her greatest accomplishment.

Submitted by Lesley McAvoy, vice president of the West Hempstead Historical Society