Legacy Of Farmingdale Band Instructor, Chaperone, Live On 1 Year Later: 'Band Is A Family'

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The band then performed at the annual Newsday Marching Band Festival — an event relished by Pellettiere — a month later.

And then, perhaps most amazingly, students and faculty made the trip back to Pine Forest Camp the year after the crash, never missing a beat.

Defendini said each feat is “impressive in its own way.” He was “wildly impressed” at how quickly the students wanted to get back to performing right after the crash.

“I remember the crash happened on a Thursday,” Defendini told Patch. “It was less than a week later that I remember being in the band room and watching the kids practice and getting ready for the music. Within a very short period of time, they were playing again [at homecoming]. A week after that, they had their first performance. A couple of weeks after that, they had the Newsday Marching Band Festival. They got on the horse quickly just to get something going.”

Defendini said mulling over the decision to return to band camp a year later gave a lot of people “a bit of a pit in their stomach” about what the proper call was.

“I think it took a lot of courage, especially for the kids who were on bus one, to go back to band camp and do that whole thing again,” he said. “I don’t think I can rank [the milestones], but in their own way, they proved how profoundly resilient they were.”

Before camp, the school’s two band directors, David Abrams and Matthew DeMasi, met with their students in their musical rotations to discuss if they wanted to return to camp. Dalerettes coaches Lauren Scotti and Jessica Baker, as well as Daler Guard coach Shawnte Carter, did the same with their students, according to Defendini.

“It was pretty much a universal and collectively held belief that they needed to go back,” Defendini said. “The kids wanted to go back. The biggest concern we had was the bus itself.”

The district gave students multiple options on reaching Greeley, Pennsylvania, for band camp, which was held Sept. 12 through Sept. 15. Many took a charter bus — the district used Coachman Luxury Transport after using Regency Transportation last year — and students were given the option to bring a parent or loved one with them before the guardian would immediately take the return trip home. Parents were also allowed to drive their children and other students to camp.

In late July, in direct response to the rollover, a crash gate was installed on Interstate 84 in the mid-Hudson Valley area.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer last year said the new gate will “save lives.”

“It took a horrific accident and horrific deaths, and almost a year later, they finally put in the crash gate,” Farmingdale Village Mayor Ralph Ekstrand said. “That was a good thing that came out of it.”

Some students decided to no longer be in the band after last year’s events, Defendini said. Of the students who remained in the program, 100 percent of them went to band camp this year — even those who were seriously injured last year, he said.
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Band camp fostered an “uplifting” environment for all involved, Defendini said.

“It was a very cathartic moment,” he said. “It was an opportunity for them to turn the page and craft a new core memory. Band camp had always been a really special place for kids. The accident caused a bit of a rift in what they perceived band camp was, especially the kids who had never been there before — those freshmen coming up the ranks and even some of the eighth graders who became ninth graders this year — they never got a chance to experience it, and the only thing they’re left to think is based upon what they felt last year after the accident. There was this level of concern, I think, with regard to band camp about it being a safe place, a happy place. This year, making the decision to go forward with it was tough, but we’re so glad that we did, because they crafted those new core memories. They’re in a far better place than they were.”

Defendini knew he and his team would have to discuss the topic of band camp as soon as, not long after the crash, the Dalerettes were sifting through pillowcases donated to the district by a sewing group when one girl exclaimed, ‘Oh my God, we shouldn’t use these. We should save these for next year’s band camp!'”

“And all of a sudden, Jed Herman, the principal sitting next to me, I looked at him and I was like, ‘Guess we’re going back up to band camp,'” Defendini said. “I was like, ‘Holy cow, it wasn’t even a second thought.’ This girl, last year after the bus accident, immediately turned her head toward, ‘We’re going back.'”

The spirit that Pellettiere and Ferrari traditionally instilled in band camp was omnipresent over the four days, the superintendent said.

“That band is a family,” Defendini said. “That’s what it is at the end of the day and what makes it so special. Yeah, they play great music. Yeah, the marching band is fun to watch, and they do a great show. But the connections that are made at band camp come from the heart and soul of our band. And the heart and soul of band as long as I can remember, especially band camp specifically, was Gina and Bea. The two of them. They were the mom and grandma of band, and they created a family environment and a culture up there that made it really special. Something that kids really wanted to be a part of. That will live on forever.”

Miguel Hutchinson, a class of 2012 graduate who had Pellettiere in wind ensemble and marching band, said he cannot believe a year has already passed.

“I feel that Ms. P and Mrs. Ferrari live on through us,” he said. “Every person they met, every person they taught, every person they made laugh. We all continue their legacy by spreading the joy and laughter they gave us, to other people we meet.”

For more than a decade, band camp had several traditions started by Pellettiere and Ferrari: DJ Night, karaoke, a students vs. teachers volleyball game, a basketball tournament, all of it continued this year. The only thing added was a ceremony on the first day of camp to celebrate the legacy of the band’s matriarchs.

“That’s on their backs,” Defendini said. “That’s the traditions and culture that they created, and we maintained that. I think that’s their legacy.”

Gabby Messina, who played clarinet in marching band in wind ensemble, had Pellettiere before she graduated in 2009. She said it is “absolutely no surprise” the students attended band camp a year after the “horrific accident.”

“Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, each of these students, staff and chaperones marched forward with great strength, bravery, and perseverance to keep this wonderful tradition alive,” Messina said. “Ms. P and Mrs. Ferrari would be so proud of these courageous human beings.”

Hutchinson said the biggest lesson he learned from Pellettiere is to “do what you love doing.”

“You can tell Ms. P loved being a band teacher,” he said. “From conducting band with the seemingly superpower of being able to pick out who messed up, to being nervous with us during NYSSMA performances, or to times just hanging out in the band room. She was an incredible person, and it showed that she loved being a teacher.”

The bus crash rocked the fabric of the entire community. The most tragic outcome, perhaps, was that Pellettiere was the single mother of a boy named Joseph, now 3 years old.

Defendini said he has been in contact with Joseph’s family.

“There’s a lot of love and a lot of support for him right now,” he said. “I don’t think that that’s going to wane. That love and level support, not just from our community, but his immediate family. That family, they are together and they are committed to making sure they can do everything they possibly can to make sure that boy has a wonderful, happy life. We’re going to make sure that we continue to stay connected to that family.”

The district plans to support Joseph for years after the crash that claimed his mother.

“We’re not going to stop,” Defendini said.

An outpouring of love came from the community after the crash — for Joseph and the marching band students injured physically and scarred emotionally.

Mariano Schwartz, a 17-year-old pianist who attends St. Anthony’s High School, performs at 317 Main Street, a restaurant in Farmingdale, and donates 100 percent of his tips to various causes.

When Joseph became orphaned by the tragedy, Schwartz organized multiple fundraisers at the restaurant for Joseph’s education. The first fundraiser he had for Joseph resulted in a sea of Dalers green filling the back room of the spacious restaurant’s event space.

“I haven’t seen anything like it. Before or since,” Schwartz said. “The room was packed. I remember I walked in with my brother, and there were so many people in the room that we had to squeeze through people to get where you wanted to. It was crazy.”

The unity shown by the community at the events was “really beautiful,” Schwartz said. The amount of people who went after Schwartz and his family posted the event on social media was “amazing,” he said.

“I didn’t know that many people were ever going to come. I want to thank everyone from Farmingdale from that day. I only just played the piano. It was really all the people who decided to donate who helped. The people who spread the message and told people to come. I think they did all the actual legwork.”

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, community merchants rushed to create fundraisers for those impacted in the crash.

Long Island Pizza Strong, an island-wide initiative, was founded in response to the crash. Pizzerias, for one day, were asked to donate a portion of proceeds to a cause. More than $102K was raised, as proceeds went to five pools: the students who were critically injured, non-critically injured students, the families of Gina Pellettiere and Bea Ferrari, and the school for marching band equipment.

Jen O’Neill, owner of Step By Step Dance Studio in Farmingdale and a former Dalerette, helped raise more than $1,200 for one of the students critically injured in the crash, along with the help of her charitable troupe, the Step By Step Dance Company.

Other businesses that helped include Adventureland, the Farmingdale McDonald’s restaurant on Route 109, Whiskey Down Diner, Uncle Joey’s Rainbow Explosion, Lithology Brewing Co., Croxley’s Ale House, Nicolette’s For The Home, Bagel Boss, Vico, 317 Main Street, Flower Shop of Farmingdale, and more.

The unity shown by the Farmingdale community at that time is still felt a year later, Defendini said. He addressed the topic with the district’s staff during the past Superintendent Conference Day.

“We’ve been through so much,” he said. “COVID, the sociopolitical issues going on in the world today, international issues that are resonating here at the local level, and then the bus crash. It seems from a school district standpoint, it seems we’ve been part of a dynamic that’s really pressed us and tested our ability to be able to stay together. I said to our team, ‘I don’t think there’s a circumstance that I can promise you that anything’s going to be quiet anymore. But what this community has proven is that whatever is thrown at us, it doesn’t break us. It only brings us tighter. Every time we go through something hard, it just connects us a little bit more.’ People realize, ‘Hard things might come, but I’ll have my Farmingdale family with me, and it will be OK. I’ll get through it.'”

He added: “I think that’s what we sort of have to hold to. We’re not going to create a circumstance in which crazy is not going to be part of our everyday life. It will be. But we have each other. We’ve proven we’ve had each other for years on end. This last year, probably being the most profound. We’ve proven that if we do stay together, we work with each other, we love each other, we’re compassionate and we care about each other, then we can do it. We can do it well.”

Coming together during a tough time is “what Dalers do,” Ekstrand said, noting Farmingdale has had other tragedies over the years, including the 2012 drag racing crash that killed five teenagers on State Route 24 — or Conklin Street.

“Dalers have always come together strong in any type of problem that has arisen in unity,” Ekstrand said. “Daler Strong has come out and shows its Daler face, its Daler pride, helps everything out with the situation. Then it goes back to being normal, everyday life. Daler Strong comes out whenever it is needed and for as long as it is needed. Then, as life comes back to normal, Daler Strong comes back to normal … It’s not that we’re not as unified or anything else, it’s Daler Strong comes out whenever it is needed.”

Ekstrand said he hopes everyone stepping up in a show of “Daler pride” comes “few and far between,” noting the tragic nature of events that bring the community together.

“But it’s there and will always come out,” he said.

Farmingdale Village declared Nov. 17 Gina Pellettiere Day and May 15 Bea Ferrari Day — the educators’ respective birthdays — Ekstrand said. The families of the two teachers were presented with a village flag and citation.

“That’s what we did for their legacy to live on,” Ekstrand said.

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