Riverhead Highway Santa delivers 500 toys for students in need

Riverhead Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski continued his tradition of spreading holiday cheer by dropping off nearly 500 toys for Roanoke Avenue Elementary School students on Monday.

Mr. Zaleski played Santa for the fifth straight year with the hope of helping every student in need receive a gift during the holiday season. As a 31-year member of Riverhead’s highway department, Mr. Zaleski said he is happy to use his longtime municipal status as a platform to give back to those in need. He was reelected highway superintendent this November.

“It’s really a good thing,” Mr. Zaleski said. “And I’m very humbled, because every year it grows more and more.”

His son Ryan attended school in Riverhead, and Roanoke Avenue Elementary principal Thomas Payton left an indelible mark on Mr. Zaleski as an attentive school administrator. 

“Mr. Payton would literally wait for my son and walk him in to school every day,” Mr. Zaleski said. “So I never forgot something like that.”

The principal keeps a list of local children in need throughout Riverhead’s grade schools—including Aquebogue, Riley Avenue, Roanoke Avenue and Phillips Avenue—and helps distribute the toys throughout the district. 

“[They] make sure all of the children in need get something,” Mr. Zaleski said. 

Roanoke Avenue Elementary School assistant principal Andrea Lopez told the Riverhead News-Review the school is “extremely grateful” for Mr. Zaleski’s generosity. When dropping off toys Monday afternoon, Ms. Lopez couldn’t help but notice the big smile on Mr. Zaleski’s face.

“Receiving all of this for our families and our parents, it really makes their holiday,” she said. “It’s the most gracious thing that he could do. You know things are tight nowadays, and it lifts up the spirits of everybody and makes that bridge between our school and the community that much tighter.”

When collecting the toys, Mr. Zaleski asks that people donate a variety of toys for students in grades 1 through 4—dolls, trucks, board games, paint sets, you name it. This year, roughly 500 toys were donated by community members with the help of Riverhead Moose Lodge 1742, All Suffolk Car Clubs and Fink’s Country Farm.

The toy donation is accompanied by an annual 5K that Mr. Zaleski runs—something residents are likely familiar with from his years of running in town. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Zaleski ran a 5K to support healthcare workers and has run several others in support of local food banks since. 

Mr. Zaleski consistently goes above and beyond for his community, with over a decade of educational, interactive elementary school visits displaying highway department equipment like snow plows and dump trucks. His efforts earned him and the Riverhead Highway Department the Riverhead News-Review’s 2024 Public Servant of the Year award. 

“It’s just all ‘do good to feel good,’” Mr. Zaleski said of his efforts. “That’s basically my motto.”