Martial arts, social work drive ambitions of Assembly candidate Marybeth Melendez
Marybeth Melendez fundraiser ****tail party
By Rachel Shapiro |
rshapiro@siadvance.com
on October 20, 2014 at 8:00 AM, updated October 20, 2014 at 8:01 AM
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- When Marybeth Melendez gets stressed-out and needs some "me" time, she takes out her old nunchucks and practices.
It's a throwback to her time as a competitive martial arts athlete and teacher -- all the while being blind and a mother of three.
Now, Ms. Melendez, a Democrat, is running against Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn). Her national karate competitions were about 16 years ago, but the candidate still carries with her what karate, judo and tae kwon do taught her.
"Know when to enter, know when to exit; know when it's time to defend and know how much is necessary to get the job accomplished," she said is an understanding that has carried her through her adult life.
"Throw that in with my social worker experience and I'm a force to be reckoned with."
Her vision loss seems more empowering to the 48-year-old than it does limiting, especially when she explains what she has done.
She was born with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic degenerative condition in which eyesight worsens over time.
"So I knew my entire life I was going to lose my eyesight," she said.
HELPING PEOPLE IN NEED
That hasn't limited her from being in the field of social services, first as a social worker and more recently as a clinical therapist, helping people in need of housing, medical services and mental health services navigate the red-tape system and find what they need.
She crammed in some of this experience when Hurricane Sandy, and before that, Irene, hit
When Hurricane Irene landed, Ms. Melendez was attending the College of Staten Island and stopped by Edwin Markham Intermediate School, Graniteville, which was being used as a shelter, and offered her services as a social worker.
Before long, she was put in charge of the crisis center, helping people with the trauma of the event.
When Hurricane Sandy hit, she stopped by that same school. Again she was put in charge of the crisis center. But this time there was much more work to be done.
"I slept there for nine nights," she said.
Many people with medical and mental health needs came in and the shelter lost power and didn't have enough supplies.
"People were freaking out," Ms. Melendez said. "But remember, in the dark is when I'm the best."
The trial by fire set her off into her next mission: feeding and clothing people in New Dorp Beach whose homes had been destroyed.
She collected cooked meals and brought them down to the storm-ravaged neighborhood and from there started offering other basic items to people. Residents spared from the hurricane visited with donations, and soon tables lined several streets in the area.
She saw many people with needs, from seniors stranded in their homes when Sandy hit because Access-A-Ride was suspended, to people still waiting on the city's Build it Back to get back into their homes.
She decided to get into politics, a field she had avoided even though high-powered politicians had suggested it to her.
One of those people is now former Gov. David Paterson, whom she called a mentor and one of her best friends at a fundraiser in Stapleton recently.
The former governor, also legally blind but seeing more than Ms. Melendez can, attended the event for her at the Staten Island Artists Building on Wave Street.
Paterson, chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, said Ms. Melendez has served people and championed their causes.
He said government isn't for those who have great power and great resources, "government is for people who have problems, people who need solutions, people who are looking to have a voice in the same system that they pay taxes to as well."
Ms. Melendez met Paterson, then the governor, when she was an undergraduate student at CSI. He gave her a recommendation for a competitive fellowship and while she wasn't selected, she got out of it the state's first black -- and blind -- governor as her mentor.
Another well-known name that she counts among her mentors is former Mayor John Lindsay. She met him while working in a law office, he took her under his wing and made her his legal researcher
He taught her that ethics, passion and logic are the keys to law and public service -- "that way you can serve the people you really want to serve."
A HISTORY OF OVERCOMING CHALLENGES
She recalls a time when she was a young, blind mother, who was forced to retire from her job as a legal researcher and secretary in a law firm at age 23 because of her worsening eyesight. She was more like a single mother because her husband, from whom she is now divorced, was not around much, she said.
She struggled to find things she could do with her three young children in tow.
"When you're blind, taking three little kids to the park was terrifying," she said of the years raising her kids in Bay Ridge. She moved to Staten Island just after September 11.
She and her children started taking lessons at a karate school across the street and it led to her mastery of the sport and she went on to teach it.
She had been a ballerina as a child and found that "karate is ballet with power."
Before she was able to harness that power, she had to overcome a bit of adversity.
She had lost her house in the divorce, was unemployed because of her vision loss, was collecting $1,300 a month in Social Security -- and no landlord would rent to her and her children. She couldn't get social services because her income was "too high."
"This is why I fight like hell because I get it, I've lived it," she said.
Knowing firsthand the difficulties for some people in making ends meet, Ms. Melendez said she sees how policies in place don't work.
"Policy must safeguard and streamline the services and opportunity for people to get ahead," she said. "The policies in place don't do that right now."