Editorials: A weekend of generosity across the North Fork

At Wendy’s Deli in Mattituck Monday morning, a pair of local residents was standing around the coffee pots discussing how incredible last weekend was.

They weren’t marveling over the tans they got at the beach, the foie gras they ate at North Fork Table & Inn or the jumbo fluke they caught in the bay. These were two hard-working middle-class individuals who were talking about how great it was to give back to a pair of local firemen.

There are lots of fundraisers on the North Fork each summer. Yet it’s still incredible to see so much support for local charity events.

Between the two firemen’s fundraisers, the Greenport Skate Park Festival and a gala for Eastern Long Island Hospital, more than 1,500 area residents attended benefits over the weekend, donating to people and causes important to them.

There are lots of reasons the North Fork is a great place. The way the people who live here take care of each other is at the top of the list.

Related: Hundreds attend fundraiser for Laurel family

Related: Big turnout to help Southold firefighter

Cleaning up the skate park

We were pleased to see Greenport Village workers at the skate park this past Thursday, painting over the swastika that led to an editorial in last week’s issue of The Suffolk Times.

By Saturday, in time for the Greenport Skate Park Festival, every bit of graffiti was gone and the trash that lined the park had been picked up.

“The skate park was completely cleaned up for the festival,” read one email we received this weekend. “There was no graffiti, repairs had been made to some of the wood and there wasn’t any garbage lying around. It was a striking difference from what it looked like last week.”

We hope village officials will continue to make keeping the skate park clean a priority.

There are too few recreational opportunities for our youth. We need to make sure the opportunities they do have are preserved