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Nick Mastroianni: Meeting People and Helping his Town

Whether it’s from the Photography Department at the North Haven Fair or via the Memorial Day Parade, chances are that residents in town have heard the name Nick Mastroianni.

“There’s just too many things that I do,” Nick says.

This was the first year that Nick organized the parade, and says he was asked to take over the role after Dan Riccio, who ran the parade for years, passed in January. One of the challenges Nick faced when taking over was managing contact information for the various groups participating in the parade, some of which had changed from the previous year.

With Nick making phone calls, along with help with printing and mailings from staff in the First Selectman’s office, he was able to get everything in order. Even though he says the experience was nerve-wracking at first, Nick says that next year should go a lot easier.

“To have the parade go off, and nothing negative came back. I’ve been asking people—Mike [Freda] said that he hasn’t heard anything negative about the parade. I said, ‘Well, then we lucked out,’” Nick says with a laugh.

Another way Nick helps out around town is by assisting the registrar of voters, and says he’s been called to help out with the elections for the past six to seven years. Green Acres Elementary School is his post, where he’ll either run the tabulator or serve as an assistant registrar for the Republican Party.

Nick lists photography, cooking, and golf as his hobbies. After entering photos at the North Haven Fair for years, Nick says the person previously in charge of photography approached him about helping out. That man passed away, and Nick, his wife, and another woman now run the Photography Department at the fair, which Nick says he’s been doing for about 40 years.

“I take all the entry forms in, and hang all the pictures on the displays,” Nick says. “I stay there the whole four days of the fair.”

People in town might also see Nick cooking at certain events. He is a trustee for the North Haven Sons and Daughters of Italy Lodge 2805, and often works the kitchen for the group.

“Mainly we do macaroni,” Nick says, “We love to do macaroni dinners, you know, for fundraisers, that type of thing.”

Nick says he will also cook a couple of times a month at the North Haven Senior Center. He says he recently cooked hamburgers and hot dogs for close to 50 people at a 4th of July celebration there, and he’ll also cook for special parties.

“We like to do…they call it Dinner and a Movie,” Nick says, “You might make a Reuben sandwich, you might do cheeseburgers.”

A member of the Knights of Columbus since 1963, Nick was named a grand knight in 1976, and is currently a 4th degree knight.

“I did this stuff while I was still working. I don’t know how the heck I fit it in,” Nick says with a laugh.

Nick is currently retired, but went to school for carpentry and was a union carpenter for 21 years. After working on a two-year renovation at Yale Medical School, he got to know one of Yale’s engineers who said he had a job Nick might be interested in if he ever wanted to put down his tools.

It was a job Nick accepted, especially after he heard about all the benefits Yale gives. For 17 years, he was facilities manager, where he managed 13 buildings and 35 people.

The reason why Nick gets involved in community events and organizations is that he enjoys meeting people and getting to know them.

“It wouldn’t be any fun if you just had to come in and just do it,” Nick says, “You get to hang around and people appreciate it.”

He gives an example of being asked questions by some older women at the senior center and him taking out his smartphone to ask it the question. When the phone talks back to him, he says they think “it’s the greatest thing ever.”

Nick says he’s able to meet a whole bunch of nice people at the fairgrounds as well, including young kids who want to put their pictures in. He says he tries to give everyone in the junior class “a little something” to get them interested in photography.

“That’s why I even do the Registrar of Voters,” Nick says, “I don’t want to sit up at the front desk. I want to sit at the tabulation machine on the back. You get to talk to people as they come out. A lot of them are your neighbors.”