Meet Your Neighbor
Toby Greenberg
BY STEVE SHEPPARD INDEPENDENT WRITER
You read about islanders who are in the public eye all the time, but what do you know about your neighbors - those you see at the supermarket, the gas station, at school or just in passing on the street? Everybody has a story about how they came to be here, what they have done and how their experiences have shaped their lives and added to the fabric of Nantucket's unique character. This week The Nantucket Independent continues a new feature highlighting island residents. Someone calling Nantucket for the first time may be lucky enough to have Toby Greenberg answer the phone.

MICHAEL GALVIN/The Independent

Toby works as an information aide at the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce - in the front lines, so to speak, as a greeter to the island.

And who better than Toby Greenberg to put voice to the wonders of Nantucket? In many ways she personifies the reasons why so many of us live here.

Greenberg gives of herself, and she does so quietly, working behind the scenes for a number of island organizations. She has volunteered for many years for the Nantucket Arts Council, for instance, and her efforts have helped to make the Nantucket Arts Festival the successful celebration it is today. When the fifteenth annual festival kicks off this weekend, the public won't know what Greenberg meant to its planning, but event organizers will - the regular meetings leading up to the festival were held at her house.

It's all part of the commitment and enthusiasm Greenberg brings to her volunteer efforts. Over the years she's been on the board of the Alliance Against Substance Abuse, the Nantucket Civic League and the Nantucket Arts Alliance. She is currently on the community relations board of Nantucket Cottage Hospital, works as a volunteer for Hospice Care of Nantucket and is a member of the town's Visitors Services Advisory Committee.

This is all in addition to her regular job at the chamber of commerce, where she has been a familiar face to residents and visitors alike for the past ten years, both during the day and at chamber events like Business After Hours.

"I want to give back," she says after much prodding. "I need to give back to the island that I love so much and that brings me peace."

Greenberg has loved Nantucket since she first arrived on a visit in 1973. The Baltimore native and successful buyer for a major retail store immediately began spending summers here with her family. Toby also found employment through the years, working at different times for Michael Molinar, Rafael Osona and Sarah Leah Chase, who has praise, incidentally, for Toby's blueberry cheesecake recipe. "I've never not worked," Greenberg notes.

But it was a bout of pneumonia in the early '80s that prompted her to get even more involved. "I had pneumonia and was here alone," she recalled. "I realized that it was not good to be here alone and be in the hospital."

The next year, in 1982, Toby went to Mimi Young, the head of volunteers for the hospital, and asked if she could help island visitors in need of hospital care. In addition to regular turns in the emergency room, Greenberg provided a new kind of service for people stranded away from home. She spoke of a husband and wife who both fell at a wedding and were in the hospital with no family living here to care for them. As the hospital's first patient advocate, she was there to relay messages or help them tend to matters back home.

Her concern and compassion are evidenced today by her work with the island's Council for Human Services. She is an advisor for the anticipated Human Services Center off Miacomet Road that will bring 20 agencies under one roof, along with a heritage center to honor Nantucket's Native Americans. "Toby's a wonderful community member," Council for Human Services coordinator Maryanne Worth noted. "Toby is one of our founding members and is still very much involved. She's a team player and a worker, and she gives her whole heart and soul from start to finish."

Besides her volunteer work, Greenberg is an excellent cook (to which Chase will attest) who enjoys entertaining, exercise and being with her family.

The solace that she found during her first visit to Nantucket prompted her to make a permanent move to the island in 1994. When you see her at the Nantucket Arts Festival in the coming days, or at the upcoming chamber of commerce-sponsored Chowder Festival on October 13, she'll be glad to tell you of the good work being done on behalf of the island.

But she won't mention the work that she does. Her actions, however, continue to

speak volumes. I