Robert Crafa

In his role as Coordinator of the Oyster Bay/Cold Spring Harbor Protection Committee, Rob Crafa is the driving force behind the successful efforts to involve community youth in the Community Oyster Garden program he created, which focuses on efforts to protect and improve water quality in the Long Island Sound. Rob has also served as Executive Director of Friends of the Bay and as the Founding Executive Director of The Waterfront Center in Oyster Bay, NY. He was a co-chair of the Oyster Festival and initiated Friends of the Bay’s water quality monitoring program and the popular Bay Day event. He has also served as a Coastal Resource Specialist for the New York State Department of State and is currently the Waterfront Director for SUNY Maritime College.

Over the past five years, Rob’s Community Oyster Garden program is estimated to have seen involvement from more than 200 students under the age of 16 across eleven communities on the North Shore of Long Island, including schools in Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington, Oyster Bay, Syosset and Locust Valley as well as Friends Academy and the Portledge School, among others.