Thursday, October 1, 2026
Regardless of its small size geographically compared to many of its neighbors, ] Roosevelt residents are taking steps to further ensure that their community and its needs are far from an afterthought. Step one of this process was breathing life back into the community’s long-dormant civic association.
The Roosevelt Civic Association was designed and organized to help address the needs and concerns of those living within the hamlet of Roosevelt and to provide a “spirit of unity, service and positive action,” according to Charles Gilreath, the association’s new president. The organization hopes to do this by partnering with other local organizations to host community events, leading beautification efforts and being an organized effort to lobby for specific causes to local politicians.
The civic association was first established in1952, according to research done by Gilreath. He says that records and testimonies from those he has met with indicates that the group has been inactive for “well over 50 years.” Personal experiences by he and his wife Donna Gilreath, who now serves as the organization’s corresponding secretary, helped inspire the drive the resuscitate the Roosevelt Civic Association.
“Me and my wife, we had some issues with our block [while] we walked the neighborhood,” the recently retired Gilreath recalls. “We were just trying to talk to our legislators about certain things.”
Nassau County Legislator Scott Davis had been discussing with the couple their concerns after recent redistricting shifted Roosevelt under his jurisdiction this year.
“We were going to start a block association, and we know, with numbers, we could get things done,” Gilreath continued. “And from that, we were encouraged to look into starting the civic association.”
The research and efforts into restarting the civic association began in January. Currently, the group has established officers that will hold two-year terms and has held three meetings with members at the Roosevelt Public Library over the past few months. Several community initiatives are in development, including a potential voter registration drive in the coming weeks.
“We want to ensure that the capital funding allocated to the hamlet of Roosevelt is used efficiently,” civic association Vice President Shirley Dews told the Herald. “By that, I mean specifically road safety improvements, ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] compliance, street lighting… items that we think would be beneficial to the community.”
Both Gilreath and Dews emphasized that the civic association is intended to support existing organizations in Roosevelt and nearby communities while avoiding direct competition with them.
“We want to try to be a support… to organizations in the community,” Gilreath explained. “We don’t want to duplicate what they’re doing. We want to try to enhance some of the things.”
Legislator Davis spoke highly of the initiative and the potential impact the civic association can make positively.
“I see that it has the potential to really be a voice for Roosevelt that really represents all of the community,” he told the Herald. “I would certainly encourage everyone in the different aspects of the community to at the very least go to a meeting and get to know the leadership. This is a great opportunity for those in the community to be engaged, not be a spectator, but be a participant.”
The Roosevelt Civic Association hopes to involve as much of its more than 4,000 households that make up the community as they can. The group plans to launch social media pages and share further plans publicly once paperwork they have filed with state officials to have the group formally recognized is completed and approved.
