At Christmas time the Port Authority hanger at John F. Kennedy Airport turns into party central, as Operation Santa Claus fetes 4,000 handicapped children who clap and cheer joyously as the world’s most famous elf — the Macy’s Santa — taxis onto the runway waving from the cockpit of a jet, and hops aboard a vintage train that once circled Nellie Bly Amusement Park.
“The kids go nuts, it’s like the Beatles landed!” says Shelley Della Rocca, president and chief executive officer of Community Mayors, the all-volunteer Bay Ridge organization behind the festive frolic and other outings for developmentally disabled children and young adults to citywide hotspots that may otherwise be off-limits to them.
Della Rocca is the “chief cook and bottle washer” who mobilizes a dedicated corps of volunteers — among them firemen, cops, teachers, and bankers — and organizes excursions to amusement parks, circuses, zoos, sports campuses, museums, and botanic gardens, a favorite of blind children who pot plants to take home.
She creates schedules, contacts insurance companies, reaches out to sponsors and city agencies, arranges permits, and coordinates the group’s annual fund-raiser with the same generous spirit that makes her trips possible.
Denise Sultan, a retired Special Education teacher who has participated in several Community Mayors’ trips, says Della Rocca welcomed her students like family when they visited the New York Aquarium.
“Shelley was by the door greeting everyone and you immediately felt you were important and a part of everything happening around you,” says Sultan. “We were humbled by how well she brought us into whatever was going on.”
Community Mayors began in 1875 as Locality Mayors, with President Teddy Roosevelt and actor Danny Kaye among its early members, but it was reincorporated under the leadership of Della Rocca’s civic-minded father, Dominick, a popular Fort Greene restaurateur who organized sports teams for handicapped players, helped form a summer camp for blind children, organized a Christmas neighborhood parade, and made compassion a family affair.
“My father and I would cook on the weekends and talk Community Mayors,” says Della Rocca, 65, a breast cancer survivor who became the chief mayor after his passing in the mid-1990s. “Growing up in the group made me realize how lucky I was, and helped me to cope with other things in my life.”
She established a sleep-away summer camp scholarship program in her father’s memory to help disabled children learn independence and be around their peers without the judgement of other children, while allowing their parents some down time.
An early beneficiary was a former domestic-abuse victim who had three children with disabilities and had just moved into her own apartment.
“Her letter touched me,” says the honoree who had food and toys delivered to the woman’s home at Christmas.
The Community Mayors’ slogan reads, “No one is so tall as when he or she stoops to help a handicapped child,” and Della Rocca continues to ensure its intentions remain fully realized.
“I’m always thinking how we can do something better or more for the children,” she says.
OCCUPATION: Chief mayor.
COMPANY: Community Mayors.
CLAIM TO FAME: Keeping the group together.
FAVORITE PLACE: The beach.
WOMAN I ADMIRE: My grandmother, Lillian Cangiane, who marched for women’s suffrage and delivered her message from soapboxes on street corners.
MOTTO: Stay humble, and kids first.
