Headlines From Around LI

Some of the news from communities around Long Island this week.

Port Washington Group Seeks Help with Festival

Plans are now underway for PortFest, an outdoor celebration of musicians and artists, slated for May 19.

Sponsored by HEARTS (a new community organization whose acronym stands for "Helping Enrich The Arts" in Port Washington), PortFest is envisioned to be an all-day event with stages for live music, and booths showing the works of Port Washington artists, and incorporating each of the district's seven schools.

New Hyde Park Awarded $125,000 in Community Development Grants

The Village of New Hyde Park will receive $125,000 in a Community Development Block Grant. It will fund a variety of projects in the village, including streetscape improvements and commercial façade enhancement that will complement already-completed sidewalk improvements, newly installed decorative street lights, pocket parks and new brick paving.

Massapequa Contractor Renovates Home of Leukemia Patient

Gary Zaccaro has been doing business as a contractor in Massapequa for nearly 20 years. He's also in the business of being a good neighbor.

Zaccaro, the president of Ambassador Home Improvement, may have done his finest work these past few weeks, when he renovated the basement of a Massapequa man who has leukemia and paid for the job himself.

"He's the most kind-hearted person there is for reaching out and doing this," said , who will use the basement as a place to recuperate.

Farmingdale Book Drive

The Farmingdale School District, along with the Farmingdale Breakfast Rotary Club, recently participated in an island-wide project which collected more than 2,500 textbooks for students in Kenya.

Chaminade Bowling Completes Perfect Season

The Chaminade Flyers ended the season with a perfect record, 14-0, with a 6-3 win over Holy Trinity.

Spreading Indian Culture

Herricks Middle School plays host to a different sort of class and courseload as was children and parents bustled about the building’s halls being taught dance moves by the Young Indian Culture Group.

The YICG was formed in 1994 when Executive Director Rathi Raja, President Urmila Shivaram, Treasurer Vasundhara Sureka and Secretary Runi Ratnam came together in order to create a more structural basis for celebrating Indian culture.

The group teaches a variety of 55 classes every Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m at the middle school, some of which include teaching, Hindi, Cooking, Tabla and Bollywood Dance among others.