Hundreds tee off at South Nassau golf outing fundraiser

Posted

After a wet weekend, the sun shone through as nearly 400 golfers on May 21 teed off across three local golf courses for South Nassau Communities Hospital’s golf outing fundraiser benefitting its Emergency Department expansion campaign.

“It was a good team effort,” said outing co-chairman Tony Cancellieri. “It was a really big hit.”

Preliminarily, the event grossed nearly $500,000, going towards the hospital’s multi-year campaign to raise $10 million of the $60 million required to more than double the size of its Emergency Department.

Cancellieri credited the event’s success to his colleague Jeff Greenfield who also co-chaired the fundraiser. “Nobody knows more about golf outings than Jeff Greenfield,” he said and added that his expertise in making such events welcoming to golfers of all skill levels was crucial to making it an enjoyable experience all around.

Co-honorees for the event were Matthew Whalen and Joel Schneider, two prominent Long Island real estate executives, who have both been instrumental in securing donors for the project, according to Joe Calderone, vice president of communications at South Nassau.

Whalen, of Garden City, currently serves as senior vice president of development at AvalonBay Communities, a real estate acquisition and development firm specializing in apartment buildings, with over 30 years of experience in the field. Calderone said that “Matt went all out to tap people and get them involved in this particular fundraiser.”

“Matt Whalen is a good citizen,” Cancellieri said, “and he loves South Nassau.” He said he was thankful that Whalen took the time out of his busy schedule to contribute to the event. “He brought a lot to the table,” he said.

Schneider, of Hewlett Bay Park, is a South Nassau board member and founder, president and chief executive officer of Joel Schneider Construction Corp., Joel Schneider Management Corp., and J. Schneider Group, LTD. He also serves as president of Carolina Building and Management Corp., which is a developer/owner of multifamily residential properties throughout the Northeast. Additionally, he is chairman of South Nassau’s Emergency Department expansion campaign. “He’s done a tremendous job,” Calderone said of his ongoing efforts where he is responsible for the overall fundraising for the project.

Cancellieri said that as a colleague, “he’s passionate about South Nassau, and would do anything for the hospital.”

The outing took place at the Seawane Club in Hewlett harbor, the Rockaway Hunting Club in Lawrence and the Rockville Links Club in Rockville Centre, with an evening cocktail hour and dinner at Seawane. The event netted $34,000 more than the previous year, Calderone said.

South Nassau’s Emergency Department was originally built to handle roughly 34,000 patients, but currently serves nearly 70,000. Construction of the expansion is ongoing, with a 10-bed annex completed last October, and nearly $7 million raised so far. Cancellieri said he expects the project to be completed in about 35 months at which point, “we’ll have a brand new, more than double-the-size ED,” he said. “It will probably be the nicest on Long Island.”