Tania Lawes

In a community like Elmont, even the most strident activist may sometimes blend into the scenery. This area of Long Island, it seems, is filled with activists and hard-working, vocal community members, all anxious to make their voices heard — sometimes repeatedly.

So it is unusual for one voice to rise above that very strong chorus. It is even more unusual, some would argue, for that voice to be a supporting one — one that does not focus on the issues with the highest profiles. But Tania Lawes is one such voice.

Time and again, Lawes’s neighbors and friends say, she has done the hard work but shied away from the spotlight, letting others be the faces or names associated with one accomplishment or another. Lawes works with children, as an advocate and a caregiver; volunteers at the Elmont Library and serves as president of its board; and dedicates her working life to the New Hope Lutheran Church, as its manager and administrator — even helping to guide the church through a recent period without a pastor.

When Lawes’s friends and neighbors describe her, there is one quality that many mention first. “She has a really good sense of children, of organizing and getting things done for them,” said library Director Maggie Gough, who has worked with Lawes since Gough started at the library earlier this year. “I think it’s just an extension of her basic humanitarian instincts.”

Lawes’s personality shines through, friends said, when she is working with young people, either by providing services or creating programs to help children improve their lives. She was instrumental in creating and guiding an after-school program at the New Hope Lutheran Church that serves the Elmont School District — in particular, students at the Alden Terrace School — and turned it into an educational dynamo. What started as a place where parents could register their children in the afternoons has turned into a mentoring program that involves community members of all ages.