Kathleen Fristensky brings sparkle and Spanish to Huntington Hospital

Kathleen Fristensky pays it forward by tackling tasks ranging from building cinderblock houses in Nicaragua to helping local students raise more than $100,000 for the nonprofit Locks of Love.

The East Northport resident has participated both locally and abroad in a range of community service projects — the most recent of which involved spearheading and developing a weekly Spanish class she volunteers to teach for medical professionals at Huntington Hospital, she said.

Fristensky, 62, has volunteered as a hospitality attendant and patient unit volunteer at the hospital for the past year and a half, spreading cheer and offering friendship to patients and their families.

“My mantra is to pay it forward, and my parents taught me to always give back to the community,” Fristensky said. “Anybody can do what I do, you just have to do it.”

The hospital’s volunteer experience coordinator, Lori Scinto, said that Fristensky, whom she estimates has volunteered more than 400 hours in just over a year, brings joy to everyone she meets with her “playful, quirky outfits.”

“Bedazzled hats, scarves and light-up necklaces are just a few of the fun accessories you’ll often see on Kathleen, adding an extra sparkle wherever she goes,” Scinto said.

Fristensky spent 35 years teaching Spanish in the Cold Spring Harbor and Wantagh school districts until her retirement in 2021. She also spent 18 years advising Cold Spring Harbor Jr./Sr. High School’s Locks of Love Club, which she created in 2003. During that span, she said the club’s fundraising efforts topped six figures and inspired about 400 community members to donate their hair to the nonprofit, which provides hair prostheses (custom-made wigs) to children who have lost hair for medical reasons.

Fristensky said she has also donated her own hair eight times.

“If I expected these high school girls to donate their most coveted thing, which is their hair, then I had to do the same thing,” she said.

Cold Spring Harbor Spanish teacher Kelly Jordan said Fristensky, her mentor during her first year teaching 20 years ago, taught her “many valuable lessons.”

“Her lessons and methods were always so fun and engaging, but even more important than that, she made every child she came in contact with feel welcomed, safe and accepted,” Jordan said.

Fristensky’s other volunteer efforts include being a five-time chaperone for Northport High School’s Students for 60,000 Club during its yearly trips to Nicaragua, where she helped the teens construct homes and teach native children.

She has also volunteered for Bellport-based nonprofit Literacy Suffolk, the Tri Community and Youth Agency in Huntington and the Hospice House in East Northport.

By Michael R. Ebert

michael.ebert@newsday.com

Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.