Betty Ann Pristupa could be the most active community activist in Williston Park.
That’s probably why the 77-year-old was selected as Nassau County Senior Woman of the Year earlier this year.
“I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it,” Pristupa said in a recent interview.
Pristupa, who has lived in Williston Park since 1953, has worked at Winthrop-University Hospital for the past 31 years. And through those years, she has also been a volunteer during nighttime hours at the Mineola hospital’s emergency room.
“I enjoy it, the people I get to help down there,” she said of ER volunteer work.
Since 2006, Pristupa has been a caregiver for the senior respite program of the Education and Assistance Corp., a non-profit agency with a network of 70 programs for people on Long Island and in New York City.
In that role, she relieves full-time caregivers serving seniors to give them down time.
She signed up for the volunteer service after hearing a presentation from an EAC spokesman to the Williston Park Seniors at one of its meetings in Clinton G. Martin Park.
“There weren’t that many women in the program because they don’t drive,” Pristupa said.
Commenting on her EAC service during a late afternoon interview in her home, she said, “The man I just left, it gave him a little comfort to have company before his wife came home.”
As a member of Williston Park Seniors, Pristupa indulges a baking hobby, bringing cakes to their gatherings as well as her co-workers at Winthrop.
For the past 17 years, Pristupa has also been a member of the Williston Park Auxiliary Police, graduating from the county Police Academy in 1996.
Pristupa said it was something she decided to do after her husband of 38 years, Alfonse, died.
“Since I’m a little girl, I wanted to be a nurse or a police officer. And now I’m both, soft of,” she said.
Pristupa said It was one of her fellow auxiliary police officers, Leslie Chin, who nominated her for senior woman of the year.
Pristupa said she enjoys her 12 hours a month of police work, helping people when she can and assisting at village events like the annual tree lighting and parades.
Apart from baking, she said she enjoys bowling, knitting and crocheting. She said she is also an avid mahjong player.
“I play almost every Saturday night,” Pristupa said.
But, she said, she gets her greatest enjoyment from helping others.
“I do a lot of that when I take care of the people I look after,” Pristupa said.
She has two adult children, Allison and Steven, and her daughter is one of her Williston Park neighbors.
As a longtime parishioner of St. Aidan Church, Pristupa said her faith motivates her to help people in her volunteer work.
“I get great satisfaction out of it. And I think it keeps me young,” she said.
