While growing up in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (left) and her family would head to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Manhattan if it wasn’t a school day. However, her fondest memories of St. Patrick’s Day were ON school days while she attended St. Patrick Elementary School.

”My mother would organize huge parties for my elementary school classmates,” says Quinn. “To prepare, she would go back to the bakery in her old neighborhood of Inwood and get special shamrock cookies. Hawaiian Punch was served and we had shamrock napkins. It was a lot of fun.”