Brigitte Zabbatino is a successful businesswoman who wants to see others succeed as well — a goal she works to achieve through active and passionate volunteerism.
As a businesswoman, Zabbatino is as busy as busy can be. She is an associate broker at Welcome Home Realty Sales; and the owner and operator of Unforgettable Events, an event planning company. Previously, Zabbatino owned a medical transcription company, and continues to perform such work in limited quantities.
But Zabbatino always finds time in her busy schedule to volunteer for a variety of local groups and institutions. She’s set up annual community block parties, and organized fund-raisers for area schools, including the much-praised pumpkin farm events at Adelphi Academy and PS 222, which caught on all around Brooklyn.
Zabbatino attributes her zest for helping others to the woman she admires most, her mother, Catherine DiCostanzo, saying: “She was always loyal, kind, and compassionate. She always tried to be happy and to bring happiness to others.”
Zabbatino has carried on that tradition, says her cousin, Antoinette Spada.
“Brigitte is always ready to help. She fights for the underdog and is always ready to lend a helping hand,” Spada said. “She really goes out of her way to help people who have less than her.”
Zabbatino insists she couldn’t have achieved Woman of Distinction status without an incredible support system. She will be married to husband Joseph for 35 years this November, and her children and daughter-in-law are involved in the family business.
“I also have to mention my cousin, Maria Zabbatino, who is like a daughter to me who is a very special part of my life,” she adds.
For Zabbatino, it always comes back to community, unity, and family. With all that she has accomplished and with all of her continued contributions to the community, she is the first to make sure to give credit where credit is due.
“People tell me all the time that they admire the marriage that my husband and I have, and I think we truly have a special bond,” Zabbatino explains. “We’ve done a lot together and he is a very generous person and I hope that people remember that as a team we tried to do a lot of good.”
She calls Brooklyn “a very special place because of the people who live and work here. Brooklynites are among the best people in this country. You can count on your neighbors and many of mine are as close to me as family. That’s what keeps us all here in Brooklyn; the kindness, the caring, and the sense of community that we have here.”
NEIGHBORHOOD: Marine Park.
OCCUPATION: Business owner and associate realty broker.
CLAIM TO FAME:Wife, mother, fund-raiser, and contributor to the community.
FAVORITE BROOKLYN PLACE: Ferdinando’s Focacceri.
WOMAN I ADMIRE: My mother is the person that I admire most. She taught me how to be the best person that I could be. She taught me to always be compassionate and to help people in any way that I could and to take other’s people pain and suffering into consideration at all times.
MOTTO:If I could do something to make a difference in someone’s life and it helps them in any way then I’ve achieved my goal.
