Pasquale Alesia runs free Cedarhurst farmers market for veterans
Pasquale (Pat) Alesia at the market in Cedarhurst. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
Pasquale Alesia loves bringing smiles to the faces of fellow veterans.
The Valley Stream resident, who goes by “Pat,” helps operate a free farmers market that provides donated food — ranging from cakes to cucumbers — as well as household items like cleaning products to older veterans three days a week in Cedarhurst.
The market, held on the driveway of its co-operator, Syd Mandelbaum, was launched four years ago to provide residents with an outdoor space away from stores where they could avoid exposure to COVID-19, according to Alesia.
Alesia, 76, is a retired brigadier general who said he spent 27 years with the New York Army National Guard. He served on active duty from 1969 to 1972, including in Vietnam, he said. Alesia is president of the 42nd Infantry Rainbow Division Association, a fraternal organization for soldiers.
“If I can help veterans in any way, I’m always trying to do that,” Alesia said. “I consider veterans as part of my extended family. It’s nice to see them leaving with smiles on their faces, and it just puts me in a really positive frame of mind.”
Alesia said the idea for the farmers market materialized after he met Mandelbaum, the chief executive and founder of the hunger-fighting nonprofit and anti-poverty think tank Rock and Wrap It Up!, through the American Legion Lawrence-Cedarhurst Post 339. They started the market in the summer of 2020.
Alesia’s responsibilities include coordinating the recovery of donated food from local stores such as Costco, Trader Joe’s and Wall’s Bake Shop in Hewlett. Food that is not taken from the farmers market is donated to the Five Towns Community Center in Hewlett, he said.
“Pat attends rain or shine, dry or wet, every market day,” Mandelbaum said. Of the market itself, he said: “It has changed the purchasing habits and savings of monthly incomes in the senior veteran community.”
One local veteran who frequents the market and praised Alesia is Hewlett resident Dominic Crici, 92, who served in the U.S. Army Security Agency and fought in the Korean War in the early 1950s.
“I can’t say enough about Pat; he’s like a dynamo,” Crici said. “He’s just a wonderful human being and a genuinely nice person. We talk about everything from politics to baseball to how everyone is feeling. It brightens up my day.”
Alesia is also president of the Garden City-based Children’s Leukemia Research Association, which supports blood cancer patients and their families. He is a past distinguished president of the Kiwanis Club of Howard Beach.
For veterans interested in visiting the farmers market, it is open from 9:45 to 11:15 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 405 Oceanpoint Ave. in Cedarhurst.
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.
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