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Hewlett F.D. Juniors train in Germany By PARKER SCHUG pschug@liherald.com
Courtesy Stephanie Zevon
Members of the Marion and Aaron Gural JCC Russian Division who visited the cherry blossom trees at Untermyer Gardens in Yonkers included, from left, Alexandra Kotik, Anna Okun, staff member Olga Mamay, Ernest Edelberg, Anna Shrifter, Vladimir Lagovier (front), Mila Razina, Mila Gendelman and Liliya Vornovitskaya.
JCC connects Russian speakers By MELISSA BERMAN mberman@liherald.com
The Come Alive Russian Division — a program that caters to Russian-speaking older adults in the Five Towns, Far Rockaway and surrounding communities — was established 30 years ago, and is still going strong. The program, created by the JCC of the Greater Five Towns, now the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC, has 45 members, most of them natives of the Soviet Union, who go on day trips and take part in other activities. Stephanie Zevon, director of the JCC’s older adult engagement, said the program was started to fill a need in the community.
“People saw their parents were sitting home, they were isolated and not being stimulated emotionally, mentally and physically,” Zevon said. “So, as a grass-roots operation, the JCC said, let’s put a program together for them to get them out of the house.” Members meet seven days a week, and receive free breakfast, lunch and transportation by bus, courtesy of the JCC. The program is free, and funded by the JCC. “We focus on the music, arts and culture of the Russian population we serve,” Yulia Gross, the Russian Division’s director, said. “It allows them the opportunity to spend time with individuals with similar history, backgrounds and culture.” COntinUED On pAGE 4
Nassau County junior firefighters, including three from the Hewlett Fire Department, recently took off on an international trip that was nearly six years in the making. Haylee Fischer, Hayley Goldstein and Audrey Sasso, members of the Hewlett Junior Fire Department, flew to Lower Saxony, Germany, with Hewlett Juniors adviser Erik Fischer — Haylee’s father — on what they described as the “trip of a lifetime.” Junior firefighters, ages 12 to 17, meet three times a month for firefighting training. Jerry Presta, chairman of the Nassau County Junior Firefighters Association, organized the excursion for 30 juniors from Nassau County across the Atlantic to take part in a week of training and a cultural immersion in German firefighting, funded by the German government, which oversees all of the country’s fire departments. The planning began in 2018, when firefighters from Lower Saxony contacted the Fire Association of the State of New York about connecting the teens who take part in German juniors programs with those in the United States. A year later,
13 kids from Germany came to New York for Camp Fahrenheit, a weeklong program for county juniors with all-day drills at the Nassau County Fire Service Academy in Old Bethpage. In 2020 and 2022, Nassau juniors planned to travel to Germany to train, but because of the pandemic and, later, the war in Ukraine, the trip was delayed until this year. “We said last year, ‘I don’t care if we have to walk there, we’re coming,’” Presta said. Forty Nassau juniors applied to be a part of the 2024 excursion, and 30 were accepted. On Aug. 16, the group boarded a flight at Kennedy Airport, and as soon as they landed in Lower Saxony, the young firefighters and 10 chaperones went directly to the training facility, dropping their bags in the school where they slept on cots for the week — provided by the German government. From 9 a.m. until mid-afternoon each day, the Nassau juniors and 20 of their German peers ran through the country’s junior firefighting, first aid and safety training. The Hewlett contingent, which took part in mixed COntinUED On pAGE 5