🔨🏡 A Renovation Crew That Treats Your Kitchen Like a Manhattan High-Rise

🛣️✈️ $58 Million Is Coming to Fix Long Island's Roads (and a Runway)

🗳️ Nassau Rolls Out New Voting Machines Before November

🏛️ The Long Island Association Just Turned 100, and Took It to Capitol Hill

"I noticed people in our community needed a space to belong that didn't really exist, so I created it." That's how Alicia Italiano, LCSW, describes why she started The Nest.

We've been growing The Nest since 2023. It was born out of a wave of postpartum creativity following two high risk pregnancies, and it has just kept growing from there.

We provide boutique, tailored therapy for women, men, and teens, though we definitely have a primary focus on supporting high-functioning women who are doing it all. We see clients virtually across New York State, and our physical office in East Setauket is set up inside a wonderful collective space called Revival Strength + Recovery. We've also been in Greenpoint since May 2026, offering in-person therapy there too.

We specialize in high-functioning anxiety, millennial burnout, OCD and intrusive thoughts, ADHD and neurodivergent exhaustion, generational trauma, grief and loss, and supporting the do-it-all women and teens who come through our doors. We're really excited to be expanding the team this summer to include two specialists in men's mental health, couples work, and perinatal and postpartum support. We always offer free consults to make sure we're the right fit for people.

Here's the number that should stop you: $4,000 raised so far for Deb's Day, a fundraiser Alicia built in honor of her mother. It started as a personal tradition after her mom passed away in 2021, when Alicia's husband suggested they hand out her mom's funeral flowers to strangers, because they didn't know what else to do with them. They've kept that tradition going every year for her mom's birthday since 2021, handing out bouquets to strangers in the community.

This year, looking at her two daughters, Alicia started thinking about how to evolve that tradition to honor her mom while helping others in a bigger way. It comes down to a simple question: what do you do with all that leftover grief and love? You help people. It has turned into a community-wide chain reaction of kindness.

This year's Deb's Day is set for August 22, 2026, in Port Jefferson. Eleven local business partners have donated gifted experiences, and fifty donors have helped raise the $4,000 so far. The Nest has donated $500 of its own. The fund will provide $250 each to six moms and gifted experiences to ten others, along with fifty bouquets handed out in honor of loved ones, each one sponsored by someone in the community. It's an intimate day, but Alicia and her team will be documenting it and sharing photos online.

When Alicia sums up what makes The Nest different, she comes back to three things. Therapy here is boutique, not one-size-fits-all. The team is chosen with intention, hand-picked experts in their niche who are real people, because the relationship and connection with your therapist is the most important part of what helps you heal. And giving back isn't an afterthought, it's built into how The Nest does therapy, since the whole team lives in and cares about the same community they serve.

If you've been putting off finding a therapist because the whole process feels like a chore, Alicia's intake is built to be low pressure. Fill out a short form on https://www.thenestli.com/, choose how you want to be contacted, and Alicia herself gets back to you.

You can follow along with The Nest and Deb's Day on https://www.instagram.com/thenest_li and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61584983810085 for updates on new therapists joining the team and this year's Deb's Day details.

A neighborhood is better off when someone turns their own hardest years into a place where other people don't have to feel so alone, and that's exactly what The Nest is doing.

Good news if you've been white knuckling it over potholes on Hempstead Turnpike. Governor Hochul announced more than $58 million in new state investment for Long Island transportation, and most of it is headed straight for roads Nassau and Suffolk drivers know all too well.

The biggest chunk, about $34.3 million, covers roughly 86 lane miles of resurfacing on State Route 24 (Hempstead Turnpike and Conklin Street) and State Route 110 (Broadhollow Road). Crews will also rework several clogged intersections to ease congestion and improve pedestrian crossings along the way. In total, the package covers about 104 lane miles of pavement renewal across the Island.

Aviation folks get a slice too. Republic Airport in East Farmingdale is getting a $6.7 million rehab of Runway 1-19, including a full surface renewal. The runway will close during construction, with traffic shifted to Runway 14-32, and the airport expects about a week of downtime at the runway intersection. Some of this work wraps by the end of the year, other parts stretch into summer 2027, so expect lane shifts and overnight closures for a while.

👉 Read more: Long Island Press

Nassau County voters will see new equipment at the polls this November. The Board of Elections has picked Clear Ballot's ClearVote system to replace the county's aging voting machines, following a competitive procurement process.

The good news for anyone who dreads change at the ballot box: you'll still fill out the same paper ballot. ClearVote just scans it faster, and Nassau joins more than a dozen other New York counties already using the system. About 500 machines have already arrived for testing and poll worker training, with roughly 12 trailer loads of additional equipment scheduled to arrive later this summer.

Election officials say voters should notice very little difference in how they actually cast a ballot, just a quicker line to get through. Consider this your heads up so the new machines don't throw you off when you show up to vote this fall.

👉 Read more: Long Island Herald

The Long Island Association, the region's business advocacy group, marked its 100th anniversary this year, and leadership brought the celebration straight to Washington, D.C. this week.

LIA CEO Stacey Sikes called it “historic and momentous to be in our nation's capital in the same year as the 250th birthday of America, celebrating the Long Island Association's centennial.” During meetings with the region's congressional delegation, the group covered a lot of ground: taxes, regulations, the infrastructure needed to support growth, energy reliability and workforce development.

The LIA has spent a century advocating for Long Island businesses and the regional economy, and this trip was as much about looking forward as looking back. If Long Island's economic priorities get a hearing in Washington this year, credit at least some of it to this quiet centennial push.

👉 Read more: Long Island Press

Long Island Local Pulse is inviting local businesses and organizations to be featured in its growing community newsletter.

The platform highlights local news, events and community stories, providing businesses with an opportunity to reach a highly engaged local audience and showcase what they offer.

From restaurants and shops to services and community groups, all are encouraged to participate and share their story with readers across Long Island. Don’t own a business? That’s ok… Know of one that should be featured?

Those interested in being featured can reach out to learn more about available opportunities and upcoming editions. Click the button below to feature your business or send an email to [email protected] with your business details and we’ll reach out!