SuperStars

When the pandemic and the call to quarantine began in March, Carolyn Snyder and her family, the owners of Round Swamp Farm in East Hampton, sprang into action to provide homebound residents with homemade soups and groceries, including chickens, eggs, milk, and pantry staples.

Local food pantries usually see the greatest need in the winter months, when those with seasonal jobs struggle to make ends meet, but because of the pandemic and job losses caused by the economic shutdown, they have been helping feed a record number of people all year. 

In mid-March, as stay-at-home orders went into effect, panicked buying was leading to shortages, and customers were nervous about going into grocery stores, many food stores pivoted to meet the new demands. One Stop Market in East Hampton was one of them.

The volunteers and employees of Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island shone bright during the pandemic, ensuring that in a time of isolation, those in need did not slip through the cracks. 

Being a school nurse has always been a mixture of care, compassion, and common sense. Now, you can add "contact tracing" to that list.

In the pandemic's early days, the owners of two Long Island businesses, Ken Wright of Wright and Company Construction in Bridgehampton, and Matthew Aboff, who has 32 painting supply stores across the Island, stepped up big time when it became known that a severe shortage of personal protective equipment for the Island's health care workers was looming.

John Daniels, the head custodian at the Bridgehampton School, is no stranger to the concept of clean. Forty years in the job not only means he knows how to take care of maintenance, but he also knows for whom he is doing it.

"I call them my babies. I get to see them all the way from pre-K to graduation," he said the other day.

The government meetings of East Hampton Town and Village abruptly migrated from municipal buildings to remote video conference, and LTV, East Hampton's public access channel, was instrumental in hosting those meetings and virtually connecting the public to elected representatives.

When you know his background, it's easy to understand why Michael Donovan came to the aid of thousands of schoolchildren by donating Chromebook computers for them to do remote schooling during the pandemic.

The Rev. Tisha Williams of the First Baptist Church of Bridgehampton would say her biggest accomplishment during Covid "was remaining relevant in a digital space with consistent worship."

In a year marked as much by social upheaval and a nationwide reckoning over race as it was by unprecedented public health challenges, Willie Jenkins stands out not only for demanding change but for creating it.

In the spring, when Stony Brook Southampton Hospital began to fill up with patients who were "all so sick at the same time with the same thing, that's when it really got hard . . . and everything we were doing felt like it wasn't helping," recalled Samantha Jiudice, an intensive care unit nurse there. "Now, when the patients come . . . we have a checklist. It's not easier, it just comes more comfortably because we've experienced it already."

For Carolyn Fitzgerald, a lifelong resident of East Hampton and a 30-year employee of the East Hampton School District, working in the school cafeteria every weekday from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. was a way to take her mind off the harsh realities of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Few groups had their worlds upended during the pandemic as much as students and teachers. Put to the test, many teachers became students of new technologies and rose to meet the challenges that distance learning presented.

"It was a very different summer," said John Ryan Jr. Covid ensured that there were indeed unprecedented logistical differences, but nothing about the commitment of East Hampton Town's lifeguards had changed.

Brett Surerus, a property manager who leads several nonprofit initiatives, and Alex Graham, a marketing adviser at Compass, lead the Shelter Island Action Alliance, which was quickly established in March to simultaneously feed those critical health care workers and support the island's restaurants.

When Covid-19 made safely practicing face-to-face medicine difficult, the Family Service League was able to pivot to telemedicine almost immediately — and its mission of caring for people's mental health was suddenly more important than ever, as the pandemic began to take a toll on the emotional well-being of many.

For many people, 2020 has been challenging, but as the chief of the East Hampton Ambulance Association, Lisa Charde has led a team of volunteers and professional paramedics in harrowing conditions. 

When the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center got a call from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office asking if it could open its doors to provide free care to the children of essential workers, the staff made it happen.

The region's post office clerks, mail carriers, foremen, and other employees have been doing some of the heaviest lifting of all: processing and delivering a record-breaking volume of packages and mail for more customers than ever.

With Covid-19 beginning to invade the South Fork, the Amagansett Library director closed the doors for the start of an expected two-and-one-half-week shutdown. The library would not reopen to the public for months.

What started out as a kids' summer art program has taken on an entirely new life during the pandemic. Marit Molin expanded Hamptons Art Camp into Hamptons Community Outreach to reflect the organization's new, additional priorities: food insecurity, mental health, crisis support, and children's services.

After shoppers cleaned out the aisles at Montauk's only grocery store, two fishermen with a boatload of fish began handing it out to anyone who wanted it.

Undaunted by quarantine-imposed isolation and a lack of supplies, Anne Kothari and Yuka Silvera spearheaded an effort to make personal protective equipment for hospital workers last winter and spring, ultimately donating hundreds of hand-sewn masks and caps.

By year's end, East Hampton Town's Human Services Department was on track to have provided around 57,300 meals, more than in the prior three years combined. It also makes thousands of wellness calls, coordinates with the Family Service League to provide free mental health counseling, provides virtual activities, and offers a support group via teleconference for those caring for a loved one, all in the service of keeping the town's senior citizens safe, nourished, and healthy. 

As the year comes to a close and a new one begins we celebrate people who went above and beyond to make their communities a better place in 2020's darkest of days. These are but a few of the many who inspired us this year through their strength, kindness, resilience, and bravery.