Riverhead highway department brings back popular truck show for families

Riverhead’s highway yard will turn into a hands-on classroom Saturday, when the Highway Department opens 1177 Osborn Avenue for its third straight truck and equipment show for kids. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., families will be able to climb around plows, dump trucks and street sweepers, while children roll miniature trucks over sand piles in a play area built to make public works feel visible and real.

The event is free, and it has quickly grown into one of the town’s better-attended family outings. Last year’s second annual show drew more than 200 people, and this year’s setup adds the kind of practical touches that signal a crowd: Lolly’s Hut will provide hot dogs, Snowflake Ice Cream Shoppe will bring frozen treats, and Councilman Kenneth Rothwell is providing a porta-potty.

The show also doubles as a lesson in how Riverhead actually functions. Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski has spent nearly 15 years bringing town equipment into local schools to teach road safety and explain what the department does, including a November 2025 visit to Roanoke Avenue Elementary School, Pine Tree Day Nursery, Aquebogue Elementary School and Riley Avenue Elementary School. At Roanoke Avenue, students saw a bright yellow payloader and a snow plow up close, a preview of the kind of machinery that will be parked at Osborn Avenue on Saturday.

That outreach has become part of Zaleski’s broader public service role. He and the highway department were named the Riverhead News-Review’s 2024 Public Servants of the Year, and in December 2025 Zaleski delivered nearly 500 toys to Roanoke Avenue Elementary School for the fifth year in a row. The truck show fits that same pattern: a department better known for snow removal and pothole repairs making itself visible before there is a crisis.

For Riverhead, the value is as much civic as it is seasonal. The public address at 1177 Osborn Avenue is the working center of the department, where deputy superintendent John Apicello is listed in the town staff directory. Opening those gates shows residents the scale of the equipment, the people who run it and the cost of keeping roads safe, passable and ready for the next storm.