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Fair The Hewlett-Woodmere communities’ ‘mayor’
David Friedman is the 2018 Herald Person of the Year
To hang out with David Friedman, a lifelong Five Towns resident who is considered by many who know him the unofficial mayor of Hewlett and Woodmere, is to spend time with someone who seems to know everyone and whom everyone seems to know.
Involved in nearly every local organization, coordinating events, helping to organize school and sports league activities, and supporting area businesses, Friedman, 62, embodies what it means to be a civic booster, a true enhancer of his community. The Herald is proud to name him its 2018 Person of the Year.
“I was raised by parents that, when my sister and I were growing up, they instilled in us the whole idea of, we’re not just here for ourselves, and you should help other people whenever you can, and we’re all part of a community,” Friedman said as he ate lunch at a Hewlett eatery where everyone seemed to know his name.
The belief that family is community was instilled by his father, Shelley, 90, and mother Fran, 89, in David and his sister, Joan, a social worker who, after the Sept. 11 attacks, offered grief counseling in Rockland County’s Pearl River — she lives in Nyack — to the families of firefighters and police who died that day. As a teenager, David attended Lincoln Farm Camp in upstate Roscoe, where, among other activities, campers visited a nursing home, where they read to, talked with and entertained the patients.
“I always try to think, can we turn it into something better?” Friedman said, noting that in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, he helped lead the effort to get generators to Hewlett-Lawrence Soccer Club families, and directed a collection of toiletries for residents of Breezy Point, Queens. “One good deed transfers into another good deed,” he added.
The owner of the Hewlett-based DBF Collection Corp., Friedman, whose family moved to the Five Towns just after he was born in Brooklyn in 1956, lives what he preaches about supporting local businesses by not only eating nearly every meal in Hewlett and Woodmere restaurants, but also continually boosting their profiles by taking photos of his meals and posting them on Facebook or Instagram.
As president of the Hewlett-Woodmere Business Association since 2015, he helped create the Arts Below Sunrise festival, a one-day event held for the past six years that includes a wide array of entertainment, craft vendors and, in the past two fairs, a STEAM — science, technology, engineering art and math — program in which Hewlett High School students show off their technical prowess. He remains a primary organizer.
Friedman was one of the people who were instrumental in reviving the Hewlett-Woodmere Memorial Day Parade in 2013. Long a supporter of the Hewlett-Lawrence Soccer Club, for children through high school age, he helps organize the Hewlett Soccer Parents dinner and the club’s annual beach party.
“It’s a lot of work running around for the raffle prizes for the soccer club raffle,” he said, “but there’s no better feeling than being at the Sands Beach Club, with hundreds of kids jumping up and down trying to win raffle prizes. It makes me happy to make people happy. What can I say?”
Friedman can be seen at just about every ribbon-cutting for new businesses in Hewlett and Woodmere, and is usually the one who emails everyone to make sure they are attending, from local press to elected officials. You’ll also find him wandering along Broadway in the spring and fall, overseeing the seasonal installation and removal of American flags.
He is a primary booster of Hewlett-Woodmere School District activities and events, ranging from Kids Night Out to smaller programs at the elementary schools. He graduated from Hewlett High School in 1974, and continues to introduce younger generations to community service by encouraging them to volunteer at school district events, connecting them with other charitable organizations such as the Cedarhurst-based Rock and Wrap It Up! and encouraging them to earn community service hours at soup kitchens or wrap holiday gifts.
His friend John Roblin, the HWBA’s first vice president, drafted him to become part of the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools Endowment Fund. The organization, which operates independently from the district, raises money to support programs that enhance students’ educational experiences.
“David Friedman’s nickname of Mr. Mayor is certainly well deserved,” Roblin said. “He grew up here and appears to know everyone in the neighborhood. If you follow him on Facebook, he seems to stop by (and posts from) a half-dozen or more local businesses or school district events every day. I honestly don’t know of any person more invested in their community’s promotion and goodwill. I can’t keep up with him, and I don’t know how he finds the time for his own successful business. He is seemingly ‘out and about’ from early in the morning until the last district sporting event or practice ends.”
“He’s really awesome, and helps all the businesses,” said Larry Lackman, owner of the Chateau Coffee Shop in Woodmere, one of the many places Friedman frequents and posts about. “We help him with fundraisers. You can’t just say no. He never says no to you.”
Chris Albanese, who has known Friedman for a dozen years through the soccer club, said that “David just loves people in general,” and “has a big heart, and really gets to know people in the community.”
Albanese noted Friedman’s good-natured “arm twisting” to collect the raffle prizes for the soccer club. “Everyone loves David, but I swear, half the people just give him stuff so he’ll leave,” he said. “The man can talk. He’s just that type of guy where everyone is his family.”
“If you don’t know David Friedman,” Lackman added simply, “you are not in business in this area.”
