BEACON RECORD The Village
Mount Sinai • Miller Place • Sound Beach • rocky Point • ShorehaM • Wading river • leiSure country December 17, 2015
$1.00
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Volume 31, No. 21
For the love of bulldogs
Crossword, Visions of the North Shore, SBU Sports, Holiday movies come to the CaC
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In the spirit of giving
Little Flower employee raises money to buy gifts for children
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Santa pays Heritage Center another visit By Giselle Barkley
Santa’s been sticking around the Heritage Center in Mount Sinai for the last few days. On Sunday, Santa paid a special visit to the park for its annual breakfast. Year after year families get a closer look at him. Lori Baldassare, president of Heritage
Trust, said residents also bring nonperishable food items that are donated to local pantries. Tuscany Gourmet Market, of Miller Place, provided a buffet breakfast, and families met with Santa individually and could receive a professional photo by Faraz and Patricia Zaidi from Aw Snap Photobooth of Selden. Children were also given food for Santa’s reindeer to help jolly ole St. Nick find his way around the neighborhood on Christmas day. Baldassare started Breakfast with Santa 21 years ago when she was president of the Mount Sinai Civic Association. The event was held originally in the Handlebar restaurant in Mount Sinai. In 2003, when the park was still in its early construction phase, Baldassare left the civic association for Heritage Trust, and the event followed her.
Photos by aw Snap Photobooth
clockwise from top: Santa greets child, then meets more children; and a boy sings festive songs with musician Johnny Whimple at the heritage center’s Breakfast with Santa.
“The community place is the perfect place to hold the event because it was created to be the [lo-
cal] gathering place,” Baldassare said in an email. “It signifies the tradition of [these communities].”