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Joan Silverstein was all alone in the Thornton-Donovan School library on a recent overcast Thursday, keeping a sharp eye out for a cat. She alternately worked at her desk, signed for a stream of packages and kept her radar on for Tuxedo, a stray who works the school”™s leafy Beechmont neighborhood for handouts and who has found a soft touch in the students. Tuxedo wants in.
But the students are all in Portugal ”“ some 170 of them, K-12, and their teachers. So if Tuxedo gets in, it would mean a long night without food or water in the empty school.
Outside sits Tuxedo, oblivious to his protector inside the glass-paned double doors.
Tuxedo is not alone in owing Silverstein a debt of thanks. She”™s been delivering Meals On Wheels for 20 years, which for most people would constitute laurels on which to rest for a lifetime. For Silverstein, it”™s a chapter in a remarkable career of service to the community.
Without brass bands and ad campaigns, Silverstein has enriched lives in arenas including the promotion of fair elections, translating books to Braille, parent-teacher organizations, public libraries … often as the organization leader. And wherever she goes, “I always seem to end up writing the newsletter.”
With Tuxedo the cat outside, Silverstein reflected on her work at Thornton-Donovan. “For me, it”™s a wonderful job with a wonderful staff,” she said. “The children are interested in being here. It”™s a pleasure to engage them in conversation. They have varied interests and we encourage that with the study of subjects like archaeology, art and architecture.”
A recent school offering on the art of money covered everything from the aesthetics of money to its history to its meat-and-potatoes role in economics.
The school mascot is an African gray parrot ”“ yet another soul indebted to Silverstein since Tuxedo might have been thinking an unguarded parrot would make a mighty fine entrée. The school motto, “Sepere aude,” means “Dare to be wise.” A fleet of Portuguese caravels ”“ crafted by the students ”“ sails around the top of the library”™s bookshelves. The mix imparts a student body to make a teacher ”“ or a librarian and IT manager as is the case with Silverstein ”“ proud. “It”™s just too good not to be here,” Silverstein said.
Silverstein began her volunteering via the Braille program run by the Telephone Pioneers of America, an organization of retired phone company workers. She was at the time working for AT&T. She was certified to translate books into Braille in “1960 or 1961” and did so until 1968, eventually assuming the role of director of sighted volunteers for the Telephone Pioneers.
This year finds her president of the New Rochelle League of Women Voters. Noting it”™s a presidential election year, which also sees all of the House of Representatives and a third of the U.S. Senate up for grabs, she said, “I did pick a doozy.” Of the League of Women Voters, she said, “We”™re nonpartisan; we encourage informed voting, basically. We don”™t support candidates, but we do study and support issues.
“We work with colleges and we stand in front of supermarkets and the library to make sure people know what it”™s all about.” As in the past, the LWV will sponsor the New Rochelle School Board and City Council debates this year.
Silverstein is also president of the Charter League and Citizens Council of New Rochelle, the now-combined organization that in the last 16 years twice defended New Rochelle”™s city manager form of government. “In the 1920s, it was the Charter League that brought council-manager government to New Rochelle,” she said. Opponents of that system, said to favor a stronger mayor”™s role, rallied in 1992 and 1994 to scrap the manager system. “It was a major blowup,” Silverstein said, noting her organization prevailed both times.
Silverstein is a Brooklynite by birth who has embraced New Rochelle with both arms for most of her adult life. “When Bloomingdale”™s left New Rochelle, I cut up my Bloomingdale”™s card,” she said. “I was incensed.”
She served in a leadership capacity with the parent-teacher organization at the school of her now-grown three children: Peter, Matthew and Janet. Her husband is Albert ”“ a lifelong Queen City resident. They enrolled their children at the now-defunct Stephenson School on Stephenson Boulevard. Soon, Silverstein was president of the Stephenson School PTA.
In 1978, “I was fortunate enough” to be appointed to the New Rochelle Public Library Board.
“Libraries are my big passion,” said Silverstein. “They”™re open when schools are closed. They cut across all socio-economic and cultural lines. You see people of all types there.” Silverstein served 11 years on the Westchester Library Board, two of those years as president. She helped found the Advocates of the Westchester Library System, which lobbied for more money from the county (successfully) and from the state (successfully, though to a lesser degree than with the county).
“The county has been very supportive ”“ starting with (county executives) Al DelBello, then Andy O”™Rourke and Andy Spano and the Legislature. I think they see what libraries do.”
Silverstein credits Westchester Library System Director Mitch Freedman with making the system the success it is today via a shared database with a scaled fee system that makes the small libraries function like the big ones.
“Haven”™t I been busy?” Silverstein jokes. She quickly shares the credit: “A lot of what goes on in New Rochelle is volunteer driven.”
