When the community of Baldwin is in need, Shawn Sabel jumps at the opportunity to help those around him. Why? His answer is simple: He just wants to see Baldwin do better.
From raising money for local families to spearheading the fundraising initiative to hang holiday lights in town, Sabel has been a model of philanthropy in Baldwin, and for his efforts, he has been named the Herald’s 2025 Person of the Year.
In November 2018, Sabel purchased the Irish Pub, on Merrick Road in Baldwin, wanting to live out his dream of owning a bar. Growing up in Merrick, he was surrounded by the bar-scene atmosphere his whole life, with family members who worked in them. At age 32, he went in search of a bartending job and was hired at the Irish Pub. Two months later, he bought it. From that point on, he wanted to be involved in the community in any way he could.
“When I came here, I fell in love with this town,” Sabel, now 39, said. “I walked in the Irish Pub the first day I was going for a bartending job and I was, like, ‘Wow, this feels like home.’”
Susan Cools, president of the Baldwin-Rockville Centre Rotary at the time, recalls meeting Sabel at a Rotary meeting. Cools and her daughter, Samantha, are real estate agents who make up the Cools Team at Compass, selling prosperities on the South Shore.
“He came in and said he had just purchased the Irish Pub and he really wanted to be involved in the community,” Susan recalled. “He wanted to get to know everybody and do whatever he could to be helpful in the community.”
Cools had a feeling that Sabel was someone the community needed from that first day. “I remember at the time, thinking, well, he’s very young, and that’s wonderful, because that’s exactly what we need — hopefully he’ll do what he says he wants to do,’” she recounted.
Fast forward seven years, and Sabel has proved to be a man of his word. This year his fundraising focus was on bringing holiday lights to the stretch of Merrick Road that runs through Baldwin. After residents voiced their disappointment and frustration about the lack of lights in town on a local Facebook group last year, Sabel, inspired to help, decided to turn the conversation into action.
“Last December, Shawn said that every fundraiser he’s going to do in 2025, the money will go toward holiday lights,” Samantha Cools, the younger half of the Cools Team and Sabel’s girlfriend, said. In order to buy the lights in time for the holidays, all of the money had to be raised before the fall.
In February, the pub kicked off the year by hosting its annual Chili Cook-Off, and raised about $1,200. Later in the year, Sabel hosted Pubpalooza, and raised roughly $6,900. The combined $8,000, helping the Baldwin Chamber of Commerce install eight new strings of holiday lights that now hang over Merrick Road.
“He is the hardest-working person I’ve ever met,” Samantha Cools told the Herald. “This isn’t just a job for him. This isn’t just a business. This is his life. He thinks about this 24/7. When he’s not at work, he’s thinking about what he could be doing better at the pub, what he could be amplifying.”
Sabel says he thinks of Baldwin as a family, not just the town where his business is located. He cares for the community because its residents care about him. During the pandemic, they supported his business, keeping the Irish Pub open, while he did everything he could to make sure his staff and their families were OK. He expanded his menu and made the pub into more of a restaurant, offering customers take-out options. The pandemic spread less than two years after he bought the bar, and forced a lot of local businesses to close, so, Samantha said, he feels he owes it to the community to be involved because they helped the pub survive.
“It really changed his whole outlook on the Baldwin community,” she said.
“Shawn is the guy you go to when you need something done,” Nassau County Legislator Debra Mulé said. “He may not necessarily have a firsthand knowledge of it, but he’s the guy you go to, because he is always going to say yes.”
Mulé, who has worked with Sabel on three fundraisers, describes him as “very, very community-oriented.”
“He brought his business to Baldwin and saw, with that, an opportunity to give back and do what’s right for the community,” she said. “He’s done it. He’s not just talking the talk, but he’s walking the walk.”
Sabel was recognized for his civic contributions at the Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce’s annual awards breakfast in October, when he was named the 2025 Baldwin Chamber of Commerce Businessperson of the Year.
Sabel’s motivation to continue his philanthropic efforts honors the legacy of the Irish Pub, which has been a fixture in town since 1963. As of right now, there are no concrete plans for fundraisers in 2026, but he has no inclination to slow down anytime soon.
“The more he saw how close the community was, the more he just really wanted to be a part of it,” Samantha said.
His dedication to Baldwin is clear to anyone who knows him. Their consensus about Sabel is that he is someone who looks out for the people he cares about, and he cares about the people of Baldwin.
“As much as he has embraced Baldwin,” Susan Cools said, “Baldwin has embraced him too.”
