From a passion grows an effective nonprofit

Maria Obiol, of Malverne, was a New York City teacher, pregnant with her second child and on child care leave 10 years ago when she became interested in what was happening in the Malverne School District. Despite the fact that it would be years before her children would start school, she began going to Board of Education meetings, and started talking to parents in the playgrounds.

Obiol quickly learned that there were many good things going on in the school district that no one knew about. She felt that the school district needed a unified voice and some cohesiveness among the three villages — Malverne, Lynbrook and Lakeview — served by the district. In 2004, her husband suggested that she try establishing a communications group comprising several parents from each one.

Obiol was soon introduced to Josephine Bottitta, who eight years later would become the president of the Malverne Board of Education, and they exchanged ideas for several months before their first initiative: a mass mailing of 3,000 surveys, asking Malverne residents for their views on the school district. (The mailing was limited to Malverne because they were paying for it themselves.)

That happened in September 2004. Two months later, they made their effort official, establishing Project Enroll Now as a nonprofit that would be dedicated to communicating and promoting information about the Malverne school district.

Obiol and Bottitta discovered that there were many misconceptions about the quality and reputation of Malverne schools. Residents enrolled their children in private schools, they found out, because everybody else did. Many respondents said they did not like the “ugly, dirty” playgrounds at the Maurice W. Downing and Howard T. Herber schools. “We took what people said and started moving from there,” Obiol recalled.