The Bay Shore School District introduced to Long Island the school district community summit, an idea brought by Evelyn Holman when she moved from Salisbury, Maryland to become the new school district superintendent in 1993. The purpose of the summit is to bring the schools and community together to work for such things as beautification, code enforcement, youth services, better schools and better police services. The first Bay Shore-Brightwaters summit, held in 1994, brought a thousand people to the Bay Shore High School auditorium. A summit council carries on the work year-round between the annual gatherings.

In the winter of 1998, New Directions Community Services, Inc. conducted a series of Circles of Hope meetings of the Bay Shore-Brightwaters Summit Council and leaders of eleven neighborhood civic associations to develop a mission statement and a participatory action plan for neighborhood revitalization. Faculty and students from the NYIT architectural program did some assessments of blighted neighborhoods and proposed remedial actions.

Barbara Fishkind, chair of the summit, has received inquiries from all over the country from communities interested in following Bay Shore's example. Locally, Central Islip organized its first summit in September 1999 and the William Floyd School District in October, 2000.