Jean Inez Hersey, 79, involved in Glen Cove
Jean Inez Hersey was known in Glen Cove for the local charity she ran and her involvement in many other community organizations.
Hersey, 79, a lifelong Glen Cove resident who worked for Long Island Lighting Co. for 50 years, died July 17 at home after a long illness.
At Tuesday night's City Council meeting, Glen Cove Mayor Ralph Suozzi said Hersey's death "is a tremendous loss for the Glen Cove community."
"Jean Hersey was intelligent, well-spoken and very, very community-oriented and very, very family-oriented and a big participant in her church," he said after the meeting. "Everybody who came in contact with her loved her. We can't replace her."
After graduation from Glen Cove High School, Hersey went to work for LILCO. She started as a billing clerk, then became a customer representative until serving as an energy specialist, a position in which she conducted conservation workshops from 1984 until her retirement in 1999.
She attended Calvary AME Church in Glen Cove from infancy and, in her late teens, helped form a singing group called the Calvalites. She remained active in the church for the rest of her life, heading the cemetery committee, working on other committees and boards and serving as church historian, a post her mother had held.
In the late 1990s, Hersey took over the Hand of Love Project that her mother had started four decades earlier, with assistance from St. John's Episcopal Church of Lattingtown, to provide clothing and food for those in need. Hersey had it incorporated as the Dr. Alberta Hersey Foundation in honor of her mother, who was awarded an honorary doctor of humane letters degree by the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University.
Hersey would drive around the city delivering food, clothing and gift cards until her illness forced her to step down.
"She was a very giving person," said her sister-in-law, Pandora Hersey, who succeeded Hersey as foundation president. "The Bible was her guide."
Hersey also was a board member of the North Shore Historical Museum and a member of One Hundred Black Women, Red Hats, Interagency Council, La Fuerza Unida and was active in Democratic politics.
She was a past board member of the Glen Cove Boys & Girls Club and the Nassau County Youth Board and a past member of the Glen Cove Industrial Development Agency.
Hersey, who was divorced, is survived by her brother, Adrian N. Hersey of Glen Cove, and two nieces and a nephew.
Burial was in Roslyn Cemetery after a service at Calvary AME Church. The family asks that donations be made to the Dr. Alberta Hersey Foundation, P.O. Box 125, Glen Cove, NY 11542.
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