Star of Brooklyn: Linda Gallagher

LINDA GALLAGHERVICE PRESIDENT, BAY RIDGE ST. PATRICK’S PARADE COMMITTEE

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Linda Gallagher is a community activist who sees volunteering as an important factor in holding together neighborhoods.The 39-year-old Bay Ridgeite is vice president of the Bay Ridge St. Patrick’s Parade Committee that she has been a part of since 2004. As vice president, Gallagher assists the committee’s president, Frankie Marra, with setting up the parade. She is also the chairperson of fundraising and is in charge of the committee’s journal, getting advertisements, as well as selecting the honorees. The journals generate the funds for the parades.Gallagher is also one of the founding members of a committee formed to save Brooklyn’s Memorial Day parade, the oldest in the nation. “Back in 2010 the parade was scheduled to be cancelled due to lack of funds,” said Gallagher. “We held a fundraiser that raised $20,000 and the parade was saved.”Gallagher is a member of the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, Division 22 of Bay Ridge, an Irish and Irish-American Catholic women organization that’s geared toward providing support for young immigrant Irish women coming to America. She also had been teaching children from pre-k to second grade how to play basketball at St. Patrick’s Basketball Clinic for the last 10 years.In addition, she is a board member of Viking Love which helps those in need of assistance in the community. After Superstorm Sandy, the organization helped supply victims with food, water, clothing and various other needs. Viking Love also deals with public safety, fundraising and street maintenance. Gallagher states, “We want Bay Ridge to look the way did when we were growing up.”She was also part of a team of Bay Ridge neighbors who created Bands for the Beach, a fundraising concert that raised $30,000 for neighborhoods hit by Sandy.CAREER: Gallagher is a Bishop Kearney High School and Niagara University graduate who is currently a producer working with Curious Pictures to compose a 3D animation children’s show that will premiere in 2015 on the Disney Junior Network.Already highly experienced in the field, Gallagher has been a visual animation producer for 15 years. She states, “I do all of the background work because I don’t like to be in the limelight. I like to be behind the scenes. As a producer I’m happy with that.”Looking ahead, Gallagher has set her sights on being in the executive producer position of an animated TV series.INSPIRATION: Some may say that it’s in her genes because Gallagher’s parents, Hugh and Geraldine Gallagher, are no strangers to volunteering on the behalf of the community’s youth. They stand behind her but even they worry about how often their daughter volunteers.“They are 100 percent supportive,” said Gallagher. “But sometimes they want me to take a step back as if I’m getting carried away […] I get more out of volunteering than other people know.”During her youth, Gallagher recalls noticing neighbors involved in voluntary work. “I looked up to those people who did it when I was growing up. I didn’t realize that people were doing it for free until I became older.”PERSONAL LIFE: Gallagher recently got engaged to Donnie Lomanto who is a superintendent at Turner Construction.

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