When Brandon Soto’s aunt Melanie Poletski of Lake Grove and his grandmother Bernadette Petrella of Ronkonkoma, visited the wind phone at Gabriel’s Giving Tree Memorial and Serenity Garden at the Suffolk County Environmental Center at the Scully Estate, they had the thought to plant a tree in his memory. On August 25 that became a reality, as Brandon’s loving family donated and planted a bald cypress tree and surrounded it with painted seashells. Brandon died on April 30, 2024 of a fentanyl poisoning. 

Brandon was from Keyport, New Jersey. His mother, Blaisa Quattlebaum, was unable to attend the planting but watched it on Facetime. Brandon’s girlfriend Maryellen Hemmings came from New Jersey for the memorial event.

Gabriel’s Giving Tree Memorial and Serenity Garden at the Suffolk County Environmental Center at the Scully Estate is located at 550 South Bay Avenue in Islip and is home to a wind phone. Wind phones are unconnected rotary phones that allow people who are grieving to talk with their loved ones on the 'phone of the wind'. There are over 160 wind phones worldwide, modeled on Japan's first wind phone in 2011.

The memorial park is also home to several hundred purple rocks created by The Purple Rock Project, that have been inscribed with the names of Long Islanders lost to the fentanyl and opioid crisis. The Purple Rock Project works in partnership with the Suffolk County Police Department’s Narcan training events.

Gabriel’s Giving Tree assists families with funeral costs. For more information on a scholarship after losing a loved one: gabriel.givingtree@gmail.com . All donations to LICADD, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, are tax deductible as allowable by law. Donations may be directed to the Gabriel’s Giving Tree Program in support of scholarships for funeral services.