A ‘true leader’ in East Meadow

Frank Camarano goes above and beyond what's expected of him

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Discuss a goal, project idea or concern with Frank Camarano Jr., and sometimes the same day, he’ll start working to make it happen, or connect you with someone who can. 

Camarano, 57, is the board chairman of the East Meadow Chamber of Commerce and a member of Kiwanis, but his community projects and activism extend well beyond these organizations. “If you have a personal or business problem and you need help getting it addressed, call [Camarano],” said Mitchell Allen, the chamber’s treasurer. “He’ll know who to call, and probably pick up the phone and call that person for you.”

This year, Camarano coordinated a holiday dinner for military families, initiated an effort to renovate East Meadow’s Veterans Memorial Park and began hosting a series of public forums with representatives of RXR Realty to fill community members in on the development company’s plan for the Nassau Hub. 

He stores donations from Kiwanis’s food drive at World Gym in East Meadow, where he’s the manager. And, for the third year, he led a holiday beautification project in which the chamber installs illuminated snowflakes on the utility poles lining East Meadow Avenue. 

For his leadership and commitment to East Meadow, the Herald is proud to name Camarano its 2019 Person of the Year. 

He was born in the Bronx in 1962, but his family soon moved to Franklin Square, where his father, Frank Sr., grew up. Frank Jr. went to Villanova University, where he studied psychology, graduating in 1984. He became an electrician and stayed in the Philadelphia area for another 10 years before moving back to Franklin Square. 

Frank Sr. and his partner, Mario Kokkonis, bought North Shore Fitness in Great Neck in 1994, and Frank Jr.  managed it. Nine years later, they built a second location in East Meadow, at the intersection of Hempstead Turnpike and East Meadow Avenue, and Frank Jr. moved to the community. 

He ran a rebar construction company by day, and worked at the gym at night. He and his father sold the Great Neck gym in 2005. Nine years later they converted the North Shore Fitness in East Meadow to a World Gym. 

Camarano joined East Meadow Kiwanis in 2006, and was a board member from 2016 to 2018. Although his gym has been a member of the chamber since it opened, Camarano first joined as a board member in 2015, when his friend Mitchell Allen, whom he knew through Kiwanis, reached out, in need of board members.

“Just don’t make me the treasurer because that’s too much work,” Camarano recalled saying, with a laugh. He served a term as vice president in 2016 before becoming the chamber’s first two-consecutive-term president from 2017 to this year. 

Restoring East Meadow’s ‘town square’ 

One of his most important goals now, he said, is to renovate and beautify Veterans Memorial Park, which he describes as East Meadow’s “town square.” The Town of Hempstead owns the park, but it has been neglected over the years, so Camarano and some of his fellow chamber board members have led an effort to restore it to its former glory. 

He joined former chamber members and members of the Council of East Meadow Community Organizations in visiting the park roughly a dozen times this summer to determine which areas were in need of improvement, and they delivered a list of concerns to the Town. 

Camarano visited the park another time with Town Supervisor Laura Gillen, Councilman Dennis Dunne and Parks Commissioner Daniel Lino so they could see the need for repairs and upgrades. “The park’s at the point where it’s functionally obsolete,” said chamber Vice President Richie Krug Jr. “[Frank’s] been instrumental in holding the right people accountable so that it could be restored.” 

“And it’s to no benefit of the chamber, either,” Allen added. “It’s just the right thing to do.” 

Since the town officials’ survey of the park, light fixtures have been removed from the parking lot and new ones have been ordered. New benches are being installed throughout the park, and basketball nets and toilet seats in the men’s restroom have been replaced. The town also plans to build a spray park by the pool and install bocce ball courts. 

Recognizing his military neighbors 

This holiday season, for the second year, Camarano coordinated a Christmas dinner for members of the Nassau County Army Recruiting Company and their families, many of whom live in the Mitchell Homes community in East Meadow. 

Last December, Enrique Reyna had just moved to Mitchell Homes, and was serving as a sergeant 1st class with the recruiting company. He contacted the chamber with an idea to host a family event for his colleagues, and asked if they could help make it happen. 

Reyna said that Camarano didn’t hesitate to meet him for coffee and brainstorm ideas. After their meeting, Camarano contacted some of the chamber’s affiliate restaurants, which catered the event, and asked for donations from other chamber members to give as holiday gifts to the attending families. 

“Every restaurant we called immediately said they would do what we need,” Camarano said. “Between them and our members buying gift cards, it was an unbelievable response.” 

He continued the tradition this year with the help of chamber members Christine Mooney and Krug. They collected $700 in donations from chamber members, and bought $25 Walmart gift cards that volunteers tied to stuffed animals and gave to children at the event. 

“We were overwhelmed by the support we got from the community,” said Sgt. 1st Class Ninoska Urbina-Abarua, who hosted this year’s event at Levittown’s VFW Post 9592. 

This wasn’t the first time Camarano had helped veterans in his community. He was instrumental in helping the East Meadow American Legion Post 1082 this Veterans Day. The Bellmore Road hall had gone without renovations since members acquired it in 1935. 

PSEG Long Island held its first Veterans Week Nov. 12-15, during which employees volunteered at the homes and facilities of seven veterans and veterans’ agencies. Camarano connected the American Legion members with PSEG, so it could be one of the Veterans Week beneficiaries. He visited the hall throughout the week to check in on the progress. 

Giving a voice to the community

Chamber member Jim Skinner said that Camarano acts as if he’s an elected official or public servant, going beyond his duties as a chamber leader with projects that improve the community. “He’s always thinking of everyone else,” Skinner said. “He’s a true leader.” 

“If you ask him to do something, he does it,” Allen said. “But he doesn’t just do it to get it done . . .” 

Allen finished the thought: “He puts his whole heart into it.” 

Last January, Camarano hosted a community forum with Eric Alexander, the director of Vision Long Island, so East Meadow residents could learn more about the proposed $1.5 billion plan to develop the 72 acres surrounding Nassau Coliseum, known as the Nassau Hub. 

Since then, the two have worked together to host small meetings of community leaders, elected officials and representatives of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which owns the coliseum, and RXR Realty in the communities surrounding the Coliseum. The most recent was on June 26, at Uniondale Fire Department Headquarters. 

Camarano joined the Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce in 2016 and became its vice president in June, hoping to give a voice to his community on a county level. 

“You know, in the past several years, for sure, I’ve been involved with a lot of stuff in our community with many really wonderful, dedicated people — they really are,” he said. “We can count on each other. Sure, I like to help others, because it’s truly the right thing to do, and hopefully what goes around comes around.” 

But, he added, he does what he does for another reason that some of his colleagues may not know: to make his children proud.

After college, he married a woman named Dana, whom he would not identify further. They divorced before Camarano left the Philadelphia area, but she still lives there with their 24-year old son Frankie, whom Camarano called his “very tall mini-me.” 

Between 2004 and 2016, Camarano lived in Salisbury with a woman named Debbie — again, he was protective of her identity — and her children, Ivana and Mark, whom he calls his step-kids. 

“They’re all grown up now, and I’m really proud of them all,” he said. “So I guess maybe a big part of me wants to give them a ‘hook to hang their hat on’ when thinking of me, or if I ever come up in conversation.” 

Now he lives on his own in Hicksville, and keeps giving back to his community in East Meadow, he said, “because I have to be proud of myself, too.”