RC23 is please to present Joy Squires with NYSUT’s Community Service Award for 2017. Joy is a retired Elwood elementary school teacher and district elementary science coordinator. As an active teacher, Joy created an ecological laboratory and an elementary science lab in two elementary schools. She was a finalist for NYS Teacher of the Year and Suffolk County Elementary Science Teacher of the Year.
Joy has been a volunteer chairperson of the Huntington Conservation Board for over thirty-five years, which evaluates all proposed land use changes for properties in the Open Space Index for environmental impact, and reviews anything that impacts the marine environment. She is President of the NYS Association of Conservation Commissions, a statewide group of conservation boards and conservation advisory councils.
After passage of Huntington Town’s Open Space and Park Improvement referendums, Joy was appointed chair of the decision-making committee, again a volunteer position. She is also a member of the Suffolk County Council on Environmental Quality and on the Board of Directors of Vision Long Island.
Joy has received several awards for environmental and volunteer service: Times Woman of the Year in Environment; the NYS Margery Sachs Award for Lifetime Environmental Service; Suffolk County Volunteer of the Year; the John Klaber Award for Distinguished and Exceptional Voluntary Service; Huntington Environmental Woman of the Year; Vision Long Island’s Smart Growth Award; and the Green Sages Award.