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DECEMBER 26, 2024 - JANUARY 1, 2025
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Vol. 26 No. 53
HERALD PERSON oF THE YEAR ClAudine HAll
A woman serving her community
Claudine Hall has been serving Elmont residents for almost 40 years through Jamaica Square Improvement League By Renee DeLorenzo
Claudine Hall has been an Elmont resident all 58 years of her life. After her father died when she was just 10, she was raised by her single mother. Her childhood experiences, Hall said, were part of what inspired her to get involved in the community by way of the Jamaica Square Improvement League. That involvement has only deepened over the years, and for everything she has done for the community, the Herald is proud to name Hall its 2024 Person of the Year. “I never had to want for anything,” don’t think she recalled of her childhood. “So I I’ll ever stop. don’t want any child that’s coming from a single-parent home to have to There’s always want.” That concern has motivated Hall something to throughout her life. She graduated from Sewanhaka be done or can High School in 1984, and was majorbe done in your ing in elementary education and Amercommunity. I ican studies at SUNY Old Westbury College until she dropped out in 1986 love helping to take a job at Manufacturers Hanover Bank in Hicksville. The money was too people. This is good to turn down, she recalled. just who I am. That same year, Hall began attending Elmont’s Jamaica Square ImClAUDINE HAll provement League, a civic association that focuses on the needs of Elmont residents. Meanwhile, Hall’s pastor at Emanuel Baptist Church asked her to start an NAACP chapter in town. So she began focusing on resolving issues in Elmont’s neighborhoods in her free time. “There were a lot of racial issues going on in the Elmont community at the time,” Hall, who is still a member of the Emanuel Baptist, said. “My pastor felt the need for NAACP representation.” Then, in 1987, a black man was shot and killed in Elmont by a local police officer. That’s when Hall began talking with black residents about their experiences. She recalls seeing her friends at Sewanhaka High being threatened by young white men because of their skin color. While Hall largely avoided being a target, she wanted to help address the problem. Membership in the NAACP chapter eventually declined, so Hall turned her focus to the Improvement League. When its vice president, Barbara Crawford, stepped down, Hall was asked
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to take over for her. “Being a lifelong resident of the Elmont community,” she said, “it was a no-brainer.” Especially in a community that has faced major challenges over the years, including widespread drug use and quality-of-life issues. When the president of the league, Denise Byfield-Aboagye, retired around 2005, she asked Hall to take over. Hall agreed, hesitantly at first, but she soon began to view her new responsibilities as a joy. A few years ago, Hall tried to step down herself, hoping to reduce her workload, but Jean Bradley, a founding member of the league, begged her not to let the organization fail. “I noticed that nobody was taking on the role,” Hall said. “I would sit in the audience and my heart just hurt. So my mother said to me, ‘What are you going to do?’ And I said, ‘I can’t let it just fall.’” Hall has been president of the league for almost 20 years now. In 2006, around the time she took over, she retired from her job at the bank and returned to SUNY Old Westbury to Continued on page 2 Rei Wolfsohn/Herald
Claudine Hall with backpacks filled with school supplies for the Jamaica Square Improvement League’s annual backpack giveaway in August.