As part of a new community recognition initiative and in honor of Women’s History Month, the Westhampton Free Library honored its second local hero, Laura Fabrizio, co-founder of the Moriches Bay Project, at a ceremony on March 14.

Fabrizio was selected by the Library’s adult services department for her commitment and dedication to raising public awareness regarding the state of local waterways through educational programming.

“The Library has worked with Laura Fabrizio on a number of projects over the years and has always been impressed by her determination,” said Library Director Danielle Waskiewicz. “She is well-deserving of this recognition.”

Five years ago, Fabrizio and Aram Terchunian co-founded the Moriches Bay Project with the help of Senior Director Dwight Surgan. The nonprofit has grown to include Director James Hulme. Together, the quartet has cultivated the initiative, which works to improve water quality through education, outreach and the restoration of oyster populations.

In 2017 alone, the program doubled the number of oysters it seeded into Moriches Bay to 400,000, held numerous educational workshops and provided educational programming to 15 schools. Additionally, the foursome are monitoring two new nitrogen tracking systems and collaborating with researchers to study eelgrass restoration.

This is just a start, said Fabrizio, who says the Moriches Bay Project has future goals to seed 500,000 more oysters into the bay to naturally filter water and absorb nitrogen, add a fifth floating upweller system to its oyster farm, increase its water quality monitoring efforts and continue to expand its educational outreach.

“We truly work as a team and couldn’t do all of this without the generous support of community members and businesses,” said Fabrizio.

Fabrizio helped pioneer the Moriches Bay Project while working as a senior vice president at J. Crew in New York City. With a love of the Westhampton area and the bays, she left her position in 2016 to focus more on the Moriches Bay Project while simultaneously opening her own business, Coastal Concierge Management.

“I thank the Library for recognizing the efforts of the Moriches Bay Project,” said Fabrizio. “We are honored.”

As part of the Library’s yearlong Community Hero recognition program, every month, a community member who embodies the spirit of giving will be celebrated at the Library’s board meeting. A different department within the Library will select each recipient.