MEET YOUR NEIGHBOR · TOWN OF BABYLON

Before the first speaker took the stage at Babylon Town Hall, Maleek Solomon walked up to the woman running the evening and asked her a question: “Would you like to wear a cape?”

Maleek is president of the newly formed Rising Tide Amityville Youth Coalition. This year’s Red Ribbon theme was “Be a Superhero, Stay Drug Free!” The woman he asked was Lori-Ann Novello, executive director of the Lindenhurst Community Cares Coalition, better known as Lindy Cares. In a post she wrote for Patch after the Red Ribbon Town Hall, which the Town’s flyer set for Friday, October 23, she said the moment told her he saw her as one of the trusted adults in his life. That was the evening’s success, she wrote, before the program had even begun.

The program belonged to the students. Youth leaders Abigail Brown, Autumn Constance and Maleek Solomon planned it and emceed it. Amityville student Naomi Chavez Duran sang the National Anthem. Rose Bolane performed a spoken poem she wrote. The Amityville High School Step Team performed, and the Music Honor Society played “Bésame Mucho,” conducted by teacher Bianca Ferante, as a tribute for Hispanic Heritage Month. Amityville High’s Broadcasting Club made a video for the night. Vanessa Probst, president of the Lindy Youth Coalition, handed out red ribbon pins.

Not everyone wants a microphone, Novello wrote, and everyone has something to give. Ahead of Red Ribbon Week, more than 500 red bows went out to schools across the Town’s communities. They went up along roadways, in public spaces and all through Town Hall. A bow on a fence, in her words, says that young people deserve “a healthy, safe future.”

The night brought together the Town’s prevention coalitions: Babylon Cares and Lindy Cares, the Deer Park Drug Prevention Coalition, Copiague Community Cares, Concerned Citizens of Wyandanch and the new Amityville group. Officers from the Suffolk police First Precinct came, along with elected officials from the Town, the county and the state, and village mayors and trustees. Boy Scout Troop 1421 presented the colors, and The Little Flower Shop of Lindenhurst sponsored the event.

Red Ribbon Week began as a tribute to DEA Special Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, who was killed in 1985. The line from Novello’s post worth keeping: young people don’t need adults to give them a voice, she wrote. They “need adults willing to listen.”

Students who want in can join the Babylon Cares Youth Coalition, a youth-led group with weekly meetings, where members can earn community service hours. Last week we previewed the town hall. This week we wanted you to meet the students who ran it.

Sources: Patch, Lori-Ann Novello, “A Cape, a Community, and 500 Red Bows,” October 24, 2026 · Babylon Cares, “What We Do” · Town of Babylon, Red Ribbon Town Hall flyer

Photo: Zulfugar Karimov / Unsplash. Stock photo.