Taxpayers didn’t fund this one. Two teenagers did.
More than 200 people showed up at East Hills Park in Nassau County on Saturday, April 18, for the second annual Drunk Driving Community Awareness Walk, an event built from scratch by Roslyn High School juniors Summer Rosenbaum and Marielle Streiner to honor two boys who never made it to high school themselves.
Ethan Falkowitz and Drew Hassenbein were 14 years old in May 2023 when Amandeep Singh drove the wrong way into the vehicle carrying them. Singh was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine. Both boys died. Singh pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and manslaughter, among other charges. In February, a judge sentenced him to eight and one-third to 25 years in prison.
That’s the legal outcome. The community response is still ongoing.
The walk was held at East Hills Village Theatre and drew residents, elected officials, and advocates. It’s the second time Rosenbaum and Streiner have organized the event. That two high school students turned a neighborhood’s grief into something that pulls 200-plus people out on a Saturday morning tells you how deep the wound still runs in this part of Nassau County. They didn’t just plan a walk. They built a recurring public ritual around a crash that happened when they were in middle school.
East Hills Deputy Mayor Brian Meyerson spoke at the event and didn’t soften what the 2023 collision meant to the people who live here. “This event obviously, unfortunately, changed the lives of these families forever, but also shook our community to its core,” Meyerson said, according to Long Island Press.
Gary Falkowitz, Ethan’s father, addressed the crowd. He wasn’t there to recap the criminal case or explain the sentencing math. He was there to make the case for why people keep talking about his son. “Talking about him, sharing his stories and the terrible, unfortunate incident that happened, maybe that creates change where everyone thinks twice before doing something they’re going to regret,” he said.
Can’t argue with that framing. He earned it.
Speakers also included representatives from Mothers Against Drunk Driving. A Nassau County firefighter addressed the crowd, drawing on firsthand experience responding to fatal crashes and on personal loss connected to impaired driving. When a first responder stands in front of a crowd and describes what a drunk-driving fatality looks like from the other side of the windshield, it doesn’t read like a public service announcement. It reads like a warning from someone who’s seen the wreckage up close.
Representatives from the Nassau County Office of Victim Services were also present at the event, connecting attendees to support resources available to families affected by violent crime and traffic fatalities across Nassau County.
After the remarks concluded, participants walked across Glen Cove Road carrying signs directed at passing drivers. No budget. No press release machinery. Just people holding facts in front of traffic.
The Village of East Hills co-organized the walk alongside the student organizers, which meant some municipal support behind the logistics. But the engine driving this thing is two high school students who decided in 2026 that the crash from 2023 wasn’t going to quietly recede into a court docket.
Singh’s sentence runs through at least 2027 before any parole eligibility would be considered, depending on state guidelines. Falkowitz and Hassenbein don’t get a timeline. The Falkowitz and Hassenbein families are living with that arithmetic every day.
For anyone who wants data on impaired driving enforcement and prevention resources in New York, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles maintains a current resource page on drunk and impaired driving that doesn’t require a tragedy to access.
The next walk doesn’t have a date yet. But given that Rosenbaum and Streiner are juniors in 2026, they’ll still be in Nassau County next spring. Don’t bet against a third annual event.