It’s model behavior.
A movie extra and former child model from Long Island is going above and beyond to beautify her North Shore hometown of Glen Cove — and she’s rallied dozens of others to join her crusade.
Lora Cusumano, 57, is a longtime local volunteer who was recently appointed chair of the Nassau County community’s beautification commission.
“This is my home, and I love Glen Cove. I will always want to see it flourish in all different ways,” said Cusumano, a former Sears catalogue model who also once appeared in magazine ads for everything from swimwear to soup cans and toy boxes.
“I want to make it more beautiful and safer,” she said of the area.
“Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve just wanted to help people,” added Cusumano, now a real-estate broker and background character in Hollywood flicks who is often seen clearing trash off local beaches or working on reports to improve the streets.
She began her career as a model around age 5 after her mom asked on a whim if she was interested.
Represented by an agent in New York City, Cusumano then took off as a child model. At the same time, she also developed a passion and talent for figure skating, which she balanced between modeling and school.
“It was a pretty busy life. I think that set me on the track of being the person that is unstoppable,” Cusumano said. “It taught me to never give up. I try to do everything, and I try to help everyone.”
Making Glen Cove picture-perfect
That ambition really came alive in 2018 when she started a neighborhood alliance to drill down on speeding cars and littering in her area.
What began as a 40-person meeting inside Cusumano’s “tiny little house” has grown to a 100-plus-strong band of neighbors. For years, the group has worked closely with government officials to make meaningful changes to those and other quality-of-life problems.
“I saw that my neighborhood needed help and wanted to step in,” the organizer said.
Cusumano’s strive to make Glen Cove a better place came after she endured personal strife in 2009 following a breast cancer diagnosis and double mastectomy.
The grass-roots leader, who is now cancer-free, married for the first time in 2023.
“That is the way I was born — to help people and try to make everybody happy,” she said of her community work.
Now Cusumano, who also teaches figure skating to neighboring youth, has some big plans to give her home a glow-up with new playgrounds and park renovations.
Beyond that, she wants devoted locals to look good and feel good as they join in more volunteer efforts such as cleanups.
“Right now, we’re doing a t-shirt contest with the schools in the area to design something for us to all wear when we’re out on our projects together,” she said. “We want it to be fun — and helpful.”
She still makes time for the camera, too. Cusumano uses her modeling talents as a background character in movies such as the 2023 Peter Dinklage film “She Came to Me.”
“Now it’s one of my fun jobs when I’ve got the time,” she said.
