Mystery Solved About A Haunting Tradition in Downtown Sayville

Every year, Halloween comes early to Downtown Sayville. A long-standing collaboration between The Sayville Kiwanis Club and Sayville School District Art Department—The Kiwanis Club supplies the paint, the Art Department culls the talent—has provided generations of Sayville Art students the opportunity to paint Halloween-themed creations on select, storefront windows. And everyone in Sayville looks forward to this annual Halloween Window-Painting tradition.

How long this remarkable tradition had been around has become a haunting question. Parents and grandparents of the current artists recalled when they as students had painted in Downtown Sayville, but no one could remember the precise date the Halloween Window Paintings began.  

At last, the mystery has been solved thanks to the historic input of The Kiwanis Club past president and current director Roy Fedelem who has been a Kiwanis member for fifteen years. “The Kiwanis Club of Sayville was founded in 1960 and started doing the Halloween Window Painting in 1965. As far as I know they have not missed a year, even throughout COVID, so it has been done fifty-seven times. The Window Painting fits in well with The Kiwanis Club motto: Serving the Children of the World. Besides that, we give kids scholarships and send underprivileged kids to summer camp.”

While Art Department Chairperson Deb Urso and her High School and Middle School Art Department colleagues continue to praise The Kiwanis Club for their enormous assistance in giving the Sayville art students a time to shine, Fedelem modestly countered with, “Just another example of Sayville cooperation.”

Now, as Halloween approaches, artistic renderings of ghosts, ghouls, and all manner of spooky apparitions created by High School and Middle School students will greet Sayville visitors as they shop Main Street.

These Halloween creations also set a perfect backdrop for the Sayville Chamber of Commerce’s Halloween Trick or Treat and Costume Parade, which this year is scheduled on Halloween, Sunday, October 31. Chamber President Eileen Tynzar promises that the Main Street, sidewalk-event only—brought back by popular demand—will be a “spook-tac-u-lar day for a safe trick or treat.”  Check out the Chamber Calendar Event page for details: https://www.greatersayvillechamber.com/events/