A crowd of 130 filled the Mastic Beach Property Owners Clubhouse on Saturday, September 26, for the Mastic Beach Conservancy’s Fifth Annual Bivalve Ball, raising $50,000 for the organization’s work to protect, restore, and open Long Island’s South Shore waterfront to the public.
The evening honored two figures who have changed how Long Island treats its own water. Adrienne Esposito, executive director and co-founder of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, received the Environmental Leadership Award. Balloon Mission, the volunteer-driven nonprofit that intercepts balloon litter before it reaches the water, received the Community Impact Award, which founder Cynthia Seibold accepted.
The Bivalve Ball is the Conservancy’s largest annual fundraiser. Proceeds underwrite oyster and kelp seeding in Narrow Bay, horseshoe crab monitoring, native plantings and invasive removal, the Ecology Art Lab, and continued progress toward publicly accessible blue and green trails around the Mastic peninsula.
“Five years ago, this was a group of volunteers with rakes and a vision for what our shoreline could be,” said Maura Spery, president of the Mastic Beach Conservancy. “On Saturday night we were in a room with people who decided that vision was worth supporting. That is the whole story of this organization. Every dollar raised goes back into the water, the marsh, and the programs that get our neighbors out onto both.”
Honorees included Adrienne Esposito, who received the Environmental Leadership Award, and Balloon Mission, which received the Community Impact Award. Both honorees received custom awards handcrafted by local artist Jessamyn Go of Femme Sole, who also serves as the Conservancy’s Ecology Art Lab Director.
Esposito was recognized for four decades of front-line advocacy in New York’s environmental fights. Since co-founding Citizens Campaign for the Environment in 1985, Esposito has led campaigns on drinking water protection, toxic plume remediation, pesticide reduction, and large-scale renewable energy. She has been a persistent voice for the species that depend on Long Island’s shoreline. She chairs the New York Clean Water Coalition, founded and chairs the Fire Island Sewage Solution Coalition, co-chairs the Long Island Lobby Coalition, and was named one of the top ten influential Women of Water in the United States in 2020.
Balloon Mission’s work to stop balloon litter at the source was also hailed. Founder Cynthia Seibold launched the country’s first post-event balloon collection program in 2023, starting with three elementary schools and one public library. It now operates through more than 100 participating organizations across twelve states, and residents nationwide can mail in balloons.
In five years, the Conservancy has gone from a neighborhood wetland cleanup to a partner that state and federal agencies take seriously. Its advocacy has helped catalyze millions in state and county funding to make Violet Cove a county park, along with a National Coastal Resilience Grant covering salt marsh habitat in southern Mastic Beach, the same wetlands that absorbed storm surge when Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012.
Mastic Beach Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to the conservation and preservation of 6.5 miles of publicly accessible waterfront parkland in the Mastic Beach and Shirley Conservation Area. Through community cleanups, educational programming, trail advocacy and ecological restoration partnerships, the Conservancy works to protect Long Island’s South Shore wetlands for current and future generations. Learn more at masticbeachconservancy.org.
