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Overcast Sister Judy Fay honored as an everyday hero
The East Meadow Kiwanis Club honored Sister Judy Fay at its meeting on July 20, presenting her with the New York District Everyday Hero Award. Fay has been the director of the Parish Social Ministry at St. Raphael’s Church for the past 12 and a half years.
Elizabeth Fries, lieutenant governor designate, presented Fay with the Kiwanis award.
“You’re my go-to person. You’ll still be my go-to person,” Fries told Fay. “You’ve been a great mentor and helped me project forward when things were dumped on me at the last minute.”
Fay, who entered the convent after she graduated from high school in 1964, has been called back to her order, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, to be an advocate for the senior sisters. She will spend her time helping those sisters in need.
The Sisters of St. Joseph is a congregation that has served Long Island for 170 years. They focus on missions and the education and empowerment of women.
“I have such respect for you,” Kiwanis member Tom Gallagher told Fay. “Everyone knows your name — you’re somewhat of a celebrity.”
Fay, now 75, grew up surrounded by her family, she said, and was always learning about the importance of sharing. She enjoyed the give-and-take of religious life, which inspired her to join the Sisters of St. Joseph. The program is about six years long, but you never really stop learning, she said.
“We become a community, and we learn that we have differences and to accept differences,” she said. “Religious life is about sharing and helping others.”
While in the Sisters of St. Joseph, Fay completed her bachelor’s degree at Brentwood College, where she majored in teaching, and then went on to earn a master’s at Fordham University in religious teaching.
“For the most part in the congregation mostly everyone studied teaching,” she said. “We had some social workers and some nurses, but most were teachers in the elementary, high school and college level.”
Fay started a parish social ministry department at Our Lady of Grace in West Babylon in 1976. She did so because at the time, Catholic Charities had encouraged parishes to develop specific programs to help their communities.
“They wanted people to train and they asked parishes to hire people to train and volunteer to handle things that could be handled on a local level,” she explained. “I started the program at Our Lady of Grace and when I left people took over, which made me really happy seeing people continue the work I was doing.”
From there, Fay went on to serve in numerous other parishes and developed other parish social ministries. She accepted a position at St. Raphael’s in 2009 and has been there ever since.
Fay has helped the East Meadow community in many ways and has coordinated with the East Meadow Kiwanis for years. She’s coordinated food drives with Kiwanis and then made sure that the hungry receive what they needed, said East Meadow Kiwanis President Lisa Hallett. One of the food drives was hosted by East Meadow Kiwanis in March, in which the food pantry at St. Raphael’s was one of the recipients. The drive collected seven truckloads of non-perishable food and 54 gift cards, with monetary donations of roughly $545.
“She has helped us for many, many years,” Hallett said. “And if she had a specific need, she would call us.”
Diane Krug, the secretary of Kiwanis, said Fay has done a great deal for East Meadow. “It’s amazing … all of the work she has done,” Krug said. “She will be missed.”
Krug added that Fay helped coordinate taking the elderly to church and providing meals for them when they were sick.
“I love everything about Kiwanis,” Fay said. “Not knowing one another they group together in order to reach out to their neighbors in need. That’s what we have in common with them and that’s why as a parish social ministry coordinator I partnered with them.”
