Three Village Dads find a way to connect ... and help
A Three Village Dads community meeting at the VFW in Setauket in November 2019. A local business sponsors the food at every meeting. Credit: Three Village Dads/Chris Carson
If you hunt on Facebook, dodging ads for the same “tartan kilt ‘n’ yarmulke” set you ordered yesterday and posts from political activists arguing about … anything … you might stumble across the public page of the Three Village Dads, or “3VD.”
Its top post Tuesday noted that paper and cardboard recycling goes out Wednesday.
The second post, though, thanks a local business, owned by a member, for building a parking lot at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in East Setauket. That parking was needed for 3VD’s St. Baldrick’s event that raised over $17,000 for childhood cancer research.
Since administrator David Tracy jump-started a not-terribly active page in 2018, 3VD has raised more than $200,000 for its causes.
“It quickly got to where we had to start a foundation,” said Tracy, who lives in Stony Brook and works for the Department of Homeland Security. “Island Federal Credit Union wrote a $5,000 sponsorship check for our charity golf tournament to me personally in 2019, and I realized that wouldn’t work.”
The group’s public page is quieter than its private one, there mostly to inform nonmembers of upcoming events. That private page, with 1,500 members, is limited to area males, and features content one might expect of a private all-guy group. A colleague and member told me of the group, and Tracy granted me access to peek.
There are off-color jokes and pictures, and politics that Tracy says get “spirited, but not crazy.”
Tracy, 36 and father to a 13-year-old son, said the group took off thanks to its first few in-person meetings.
“In February 2018, I suggested we meet up at Country Corners, a bar in East Setauket,” Tracy said. “About 11 people came … before we had been just names and profile pics. Meeting, talking, it changed everything.”
In December 2018, the group held a pizza taste-off. About 60 members showed — the now-defunct Little Joe’s III won — and Tracy realized the meetups were truly changing the dynamic.
David Tracy, president 3VD Foundation; John McClain, Home Depot Setauket GM; Chris Carson, board member of 3VD Foundation; and Dawn Vanterpool, Home Depot regional manager, at the Merritt-Hawkins House, in Setauket. The Town of Brookhaven awarded 3VD stewardship of the site. Credit: David Tracy
A BBQ and fundraiser in May 2019 attracted 225 members and raised $12,000 for Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. Three months later, a golf outing garnered $15,000 for the VFW.
The men were making friends, making a difference.
And when the political wrangling got going, online or in person, Tracy, who says the group is split politically about 50-50, suggested “they stop arguing about this national stuff we can’t do a thing about, and help somebody local.”
Now the group has committed to raising $100,000 for Stony Brook Children’s Hospital over five years, and is well ahead of schedule. It's offering four $1,000 scholarships to seniors from the Three Village school district. Members share recommendations for plumbers and carpenters and lawn services.
And they get together as friends, which lets them cohabit online as friends.
Because, Tracy said, “It’s a lot harder to trash someone online when it’s a group member you’re seeing Thursday.”
It’s a lot harder to trash anyone we come to see as a complex individual, with problems and challenges and, perhaps, a sly, shy smile unseen in an online exchange.
It's easy to feel like a big shot bellowing at strangers through a computer, but that's about as small as humans can get.
If we want to start liking each other, and loving each other, the first step is knowing each other.
Columnist Lane Filler’s opinions are his own.
Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
