For Margaret Silberger, a lifetime of service has never been about recognition, but about the people she helps and works with.
The 74-year-old retired nurse and current president of the Wantagh Kiwanis Club has dedicated herself to improving the lives of others, whether by comforting patients at their hospital bedsides or by organizing community food drives and beach cleanups. She credits her decades in nursing for being the foundation for her community work.
“It was a career,” Silberger said. “It wasn’t a job.” The difference between the two, in her opinion, is that you do a job for a paycheck, but you make a career out of love for the work.
That ethos of selfless care has guided Silberger for more than 50 years in Wantagh, where she and her husband, Jim, have lived in the same house, at the corner of Pine Street and Walters Avenue, since the 1970s. They raised their two sons in the area and built deep roots through family, faith and community work.
For all that she has done through the years, the Herald is proud to name Silberger its 2025 Person of the Year.
She began volunteering with the Kiwanis Club nine years ago. Since then she has served in nearly every leadership role in the organization, including a year as lieutenant governor, helping to guide other clubs in the region.
For the past two years she has been club president, shaping a hands-on group of volunteers known for their spring school supply drives, summer camp scholarships and the beloved annual Spring Festival.
Before joining Kiwanis, Silberger recalled, she volunteered at her church, Wantagh Memorial Congregational. “I had worked on and off, part time,” she said, “depending on how things went at home.”
Her work as a volunteer, she says, is driven by the people she serves alongside. “The people that I volunteer with,” Silberger said, “that’s my motivation.”
She is known for her warm, can-do approach — not just rallying others to volunteer, but also meeting them where they are. “The members who come down (to events) don’t have to stay the whole day,” she said. “If it’s a five-hour event, can you give us an hour? If not, can you make some cards?”
She believes that everyone has something to give.
“She’s very caring, very giving — she’s nonjudgmental,” her husband, the club’s secretary, said. “She just wants to see everybody do the best they can.”
The two met at the Congregational Church in Rockaway Beach in 1965, married five years later, and moved to Wantagh to raise their family. Margaret had started her nursing career at Peninsula Hospital, in Far Rockaway, but switched to Mercy Hospital, in Rockville Centre, to be closer to home.
“I traipsed for six years until I found a job at Mercy,” she recalled. “We had two kids. I needed to be closer.”
Her decision to become a nurse traces back to when she was just 8. Her father was battling throat cancer — and it was the nurses, she remembers, who made all the difference. Her father died when she was 13, two days before his 53rd birthday. But the impact of that time would shape the rest of her life.
“I watched how the nurses took care of him,” Silberger recounted. “He was receptive to them. He worked with them. And they listened — to him and to my mother. I remember thinking, that’s what I want to do.”
As a nurse, Silberger learned how to read nonverbal cues, to listen closely — skills that transferred seamlessly to her work with Kiwanis. In fundraising, for example: “You’re working to serve others, so you need to be organized,” she said. “You need to listen.”
She brings a combined sense of purpose and humility to her leadership of Kiwanis. Now in her final term as president, which will end next year, she has made it a priority to help with the transition to new leadership.
Under her guidance, the club has maintained its well-earned reputation for service. For more than 70 years it has supported local youth through scholarship programs, seasonal events and collections of essentials for families in need. The 44-member group is a chapter of Kiwanis International, a global organization focused on helping children and communities thrive.
“Margaret is a big staple in the community,” John Theissen, founder of the Wantagh-based John Theissen Children’s Foundation, said. Kiwanis and the foundation, which supports sick and underprivileged children across Long Island with toy drives, financial assistance, medical support, back-to-school programs and recreational events, do a lot of work together, Theissen added.
“She’s such a warm, loving, caring person,” he said. “She always greets everyone with a smile, and she’s always looking to do good. There’s not a bad thing I can say about Margaret — she’s all warmth and kindness. Just a sweet soul.”
Wantagh, Silberger said, has changed in the decades she has lived here. “We were once the young kids on the block,” she said with a laugh. “Now I’m watching people pass away, move away because they just can’t manage the house anymore. But I’m also seeing young families come in.”
Despite the community’s changes, Kiwanis’s work continues, with its volunteers remaining focused on helping those in need. There’s comfort in that continuity, Silberger said, and in the shared values that persist.
“We are both of the same mindset,” Jim said of their approach to volunteering. “When your goals are the same, and your path to those goals is usually the same, you can achieve more when you put the energy together. Working with her doing that — she’s definitely made an impact on children in our community.”
And she’s not slowing down. “I’ll keep going,” Silberger said. “There’s always more to do.”
