Samuel Field Y to celebrate 50th anniversary

Originating from a Deepdale Gardens condominium complex basement, the Samuel Field YM & YWHA will celebrate 50 years of providing services and activities to northeast Queens with a celebratory brunch Sunday, April 30th at the Village Club in Lake Success.
The ceremony will pay tribute to Claire Pearlman, the daughter of the Y’s founders, Samuel and Helen Field. She will receive the founder award. 11 past presidents will also be honored and several public officials such as Councilmen Mark Weprin and John Liu, Assemblyman David Weprin, Senator Frank Padavan, and Assemblywoman Ann Margaret Carrozza, will all be on hand.
“It’s a big day,” said Samuel Field’s executive director Steve Goodman, who joined the Y when he was 16 years old as a junior counselor. “We’re marking our 50th year of service in the community. I’ve been at the Y about 35 of those years, so it’s a very special day for me.”
Initially established as an outlet for young people in the community, the tenants of Deepdale began to meet and create activities in the complex’s basement as a solution to police harassment of the community’s adolescents.
Fifty years later, this former basement organization named after philanthropist Samuel Field has spread to over eighteen sites. Two of the main buildings are located on Little Neck Parkway and at the Bay Terrace Pool and Tennis Club.
The Samuel Field Y now serves over 25,000 people in Northeast Queens and Western Nassau County, providing an array of services including a nursery school; full day childcare; after-school programs; team leadership initiatives; summer pool and teens club; a summer day camp and sleep away camp as well as a variety of other programs for children and adults with disabilities.