Sonia Spar recognized as outstanding community advocate

Longtime community advocate Sonia Spar was honored April 5 as eastern Long Island’s 2025 Outstanding Community Advocate by the Latino Advocacy Organization, also known as OLA, during a ceremony at The Suffolk in Riverhead.

Ms. Spar is constantly uplifting others in the community, recognizing areas for improvement and acting on them, and advocating for those who might otherwise go unheard or overlooked. Her qualities as a “dependable, compassionate and kind leader” on the North Fork are what make Ms. Spar an invaluable asset on the East End, according to OLA. 

“She is an own entity,” said the organization’s executive director, Minerva Perez. “She is a very reasoned and thoughtful voice in all of this. So we’ve seen her amplify these needs and make a real difference in a lot of ways.” 

Humble is another word that comes to mind when speaking with Ms. Spar. She told The Suffolk Times she felt humbled to receive the award and said there are many other local “hidden heroes” who are deserving of the honor.

“I wish I could share it with the so many partners that have collaborated in all off the efforts that we do together in our communities,” Ms. Spar said. 

While advocates play a huge role inspiring the wheels of change and progress, it takes a village to keep them rolling. Ms. Spar has been inspired by many local advocates like the late trailblazer Marjorie Day, civil rights activist Eleanor Lingo, and Ms. Spar’s Anti-Bias Task Force steering committee co-chair Valerie Shelby, to name a few. 

“We have so many members of our community who are helping others,” Ms. Spar said. “So this is the work of a community — it’s the work of everyone in the community.”

In her role as Southold Town’s Spanish-speaking community service worker since 2023, she has revolutionized accessibility of town resources for the community’s Spanish-speaking population. From public signage to her involvement with emergency management preparedness and everything in between, Ms. Spar has taken leaps and bounds to improve accessibility. 

Southold Town Councilwoman Anne Smith commended Ms. Spar for her role in the community.

“I really appreciate that [former town supervisor Scott Russell] understood the need for that as an actual part of town government … and saw the importance of communication and making sure we’re serving the entire community,” Ms. Smith said. 

Ms. Perez echoed the praises for Ms. Spar’s work in the town. 

“I mean, it’s great,” Ms. Perez said. “And what I’m seeing is she’s kind of able to hold the professionalism that’s necessary in that role, and also the deep, deep advocacy as a community member. And she’s able to kind of manage those lines and that balance point with such grace, ease and compassion that it’s really remarkable.”

But Ms. Spar’s work as a community advocate on the North Fork predates her town position by quite some time. She’s been a steadfast upholder of her neighbors’ successes and challenges since moving to Southold from Colombia two decades ago. 

“She was doing all of this work when she had no position whatsoever,” Ms. Perez said. “She was a mom with kids on the North Fork — and that was it.”

Ms. Perez has known Ms. Spar for more than a decade, having worked with her previously running a shelter for victims of domestic violence on the East End. In her workfor the shelter, Ms. Perez said, Ms. Spar was always her “go-to” person on the North Fork to gain knowledge about resources and support that she could supply to a family. 

When OLA Eastern Long Island wanted to expand its annual Spanish language with English subtitles film festival to Greenport, Ms. Spar was once again Ms. Perez’s “go-to person” to make it happen.

Overall, Ms. Spar helps the organization with educational outreach, informational presentations in local houses of worship, victim advocacy, youth outreach and more. 

School districts across the North Fork find themselves well-acquainted with Ms. Spar’s involvement in the behavioral health consortium for students. She has underscored the need for better access points for adolescents in the region and has opened districts’ leadership up to the resources that local nonprofits like OLA Eastern Long Island offer all youth. 

“That’s very important, because there’s no way that schools alone can manage that,” Ms. Perez said. OLA Eastern Long Island’s confidential mental health service, Youth Connect, is one of those aforementioned resources. “Schools are not running help lines at 11 p.m. They’re not able to allow for the same access points, because oftentimes students don’t want anyone to know what is going on with them.”

No matter how long Ms. Spar has been acquainted with local issues and advocating on their behalf, Ms. Perez said, she always keeps an open mind and fresh set of ears to identify new areas of concern and solutions to address them. 

“There are always questions to ask,” she said. “There are always new things to learn. There are new perspectives to gain from people that you think you might already know their perspective.

“[Ms. Spar] has that level of always being open to that and not shortcutting that,” she said. “And I think that also keeps her awake and alive to something that’s new.”

Ms. Spar’s ability to balance compassion during crises is something Ms. Perez commended her for. Her aptness when weighing issues and assessing them as incidental or systemic is something of a super power. 

“She has the capacity to kind of hold all of that and balance all of that so that people don’t become just numbers or statistics,” Ms. Perez said. “Where the need is and the compassion is, she can be there. But she can also be able to pull back for the bird’s-eye view.”

There is still a lot of work and advocacy to be done in the community, and Ms. Spar won’t be stopping anytime soon. Ensuring access to support for those who are coping with mental health or substance abuse challenges is something she’s currently working on. 

Ms. Spar said while there are Alcoholics Anonymous meetings held in English every day, Spanish-speaking meetings are held only once or twice a week. 

“In mental health challenges, we need support in Spanish,” she said. “From the hospital to the services that can be provided in different houses of worship.”