Huntington Awareness Day Parade Set for Sept 6

September may seem far off, but plans are well underway for the the Fifth Annual Huntington Awareness Day parade, which kicks off on Saturday, September 6.

World champion boxer Chris Algieri and longtime community leaders Anthony Mastrioanni and Thomas Jerideau this year’s grand marshals.

The parade will begin at 11 a.m., followed by the fair running till 5 p.m.

Launched in 2010, Huntington Awareness Day is now an annual tradition, with thousands of people celebrating the community’s unity, diversity and solidarity.

Parade-goers can expect to see bands, floats, vintage cars, service groups and local merchants march down New York Avenue through Huntington Station from West Hills Road to the pedestrian plaza at Olive Street. After a brief ceremony, the festivities will continue across New York Avenue at a fair in the municipal parking lot between Railroad and Church Streets. The fair will feature performances by local artists and booths offering crafts and services.

This year’s honorees are pleased to serve as grand marshals.

Algieri, 30, grew up in Huntington and graduated from St. Anthony’s High School, where he captained the varsity wrestling team and later served as an assistant coach. He graduated from Stony Brook University, with honors, with a degree in health care management and later earned a master’s degree from the New York Institute of Technology. A kickboxer in college, Algieri won the International Sport Karate Association’s Welterweight and World Kickboxing Association Super Welterweight Championships before retiring as a kickboxer to take up prizefighting.

Algieri currently has a record of 20-0 as a professional prizefighter, including a unanimous decision over ranked contender Emmanuel Taylor at the Paramount Theater in February and his biggest victory, on national television June 14, in which he defeated Ruslan Provodnikov at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn to become the WBO Light Welterweight Champion. He recently signed to fight the legendary Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 22 in Macau, China, for Pacquiao’s world welterweight title.

Mastrioanni, 83, is a longtime Huntington Station resident who has had distinguished careers in the public, private and political sectors, most notably serving several terms as Huntington Republican chairman and as Suffolk County’s public administrator. A Korean War veteran, he is a charter member and past national vice commander of the Navy Seabee Veterans of America and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. A graduate of SUNY Farmingdale (he also holds a master’s degree from Long Island University’s C.W. Post College), he served for more than three decades as a member of the college’s council, including stints as its vice chair and acting chair. He is a former member of the board of directors of the Huntington Township Chamber of Commerce.

Jerideau, 85, retired from the New York City Transit Authority more than 30 years ago, and since then has been active in many panels and civic activities, beginning with his appointment in 1982 to the Town’s Mass Transit Citizen’s Advisory Council, which he later chaired. He has been a member of the Huntington African American Task Force, the Huntington Station Revitalization Task Force and, for the past 21 years, a member and chair of the Town’s Board of Assessment Review. He is also the longtime president of the Whitman Village Cooperative Board and has worked to help make the Huntington Awareness Day fair possible

For details about sponsorship or parade participation, download the forms at www.huntingtonawareness.org. Updates about the parade and festival will be posted on the Unity in the Community-Huntington Awareness Day Facebook page or (www.facebook.com/HACPHuntingtonAwarenessDay) and via @HuntingtonDay on Twitter.

For information about becoming a parade sponsor, entering a float in the parade or reserving vendor space, contact Dolores Thompson at 631-470-0636 or send an email to Jarvis762vanderbilt@aol.com.