OUR SPONSOR
Greater Patchogue coverage is funded in part by New Village at Patchogue, open-concept rental residences with sleek contemporary design. Click here
for a tour.
Dawn Michelle Schultzer wasn’t looking to strike gold by opening her own business.
She just wanted to help people.
More specifically, she wanted to give people the tools to help themselves, as she had done while facing a soul-searching time in her life.
“This was her sanctuary, not just a place of business,” her husband, David Schultzer, said while speaking this week at Tranquility Within, a holistic healing center that Dawn opened in April 2018.
It took nearly three years for her vision to come to fruition in Patchogue. She and her mom, Judy, purchased the former framing shop at 64 West Main Street in June of 2015.
But not long after opening, Dawn was diagnosed with breast cancer, though most visitors to Tranquility Within these past few years wouldn’t have known.
“She kept a smile on her face,” Dave said. “She kept a pretty good, positive attitude and she tried her best … up until maybe six, seven months ago. She was tired.”
Dawn passed this Oct. 16. She and Dave have three children together: Adam, 16, Joshua, 14, and Hannah, 12.
She would have been 48 this Thanksgiving.
story continues below photo
Caption: Dawn and Dave Schultzer and their children, Adam, Hannah and Joshua.
THE IMPACT
The family didn’t quite realize the full impact Dawn was having on people until after her passing that Friday morning.
That’s when the texts, emails and Facebook messages began to pour in.
The gist of many went like this, Dave said;
“Thank you for giving me a place where I could change my life.”
“People really loved her,” Dave said. “They grabbed onto her, and we had no idea. So it was really nice to see all that. There were hundreds of comments. I also read them all to the kids.”
The support was so overwhelming, and Tranquility Within meant so much to Dawn and others that her mother insisted to Dave, the family and the staff that the doors stay open.
Dave, who also runs Bellport Cold Beer & Soda in Bellport, is now doing the books. Bunny Kouba, who Dawn hired over a year ago, is staying on as the store manager.
“She created this place for the community, so that people could have somewhere to go, have each other, find meditation, find peace, find wellness,” Kouba said.
To those who are unfamiliar, Tranquility Within offers reiki, sound healing, guided meditation, community meditation, and more. There’s also a popular gift shop that specializes in crystals and essential oils.
The idea for Tranquility Within was born out of Dawn’s personal experiences with guided meditation, experiences that profoundly and personally shifted her perspectives on herself, and on life.
story continues below photo
Caption: Dawn offers a guided tour of Tranquility Within, including the centerpiece yoga room, in March 2018.
HER STORY
Dawn knew at some point around 2014 that she didn’t want to spend three more decades in accounting, so she jotted down a few ideas.
“I was at work,” she told GreaterPatchogue.com in 2015. “I just pulled up a blank document and started brainstorming. One of the items on the list was to open up my own center where people could come and improve their lives.”
So where’d that notion come from?
Among other things, her time spent alone at Smith Point Beach on her lunch breaks.
“I had started listening to these guided meditations on my phone in my car,” she had said. “And in just that half-hour I would feel like a different person. I kept thinking, I want this for other people.”
She and her mother soon found and purchased the over 100-year-old building that would become Tranquility Within. She spared no expense in building out the space.
The chamber held a grand opening for her in April 2018.
“She persevered over two, three years so her vision could come through,” David Kennedy, the Greater Patchogue Chamber of Commerce‘s executive director, said at the time. “As you can see, her vision has certainly come through.”
story continues below photo
Caption: Dawn in November 2015, before the buildout of Tranquility Within.
PARTING WORDS
Here was Dawn in her own words in 2015:
“It’s my belief that everybody has in them a spark,” she said.
“With some people, maybe theirs shines brighter with energy and enthusiasm. Others might be stuck in a bad place in their lives. I’d like to be a billows. I want to build a place that can feed that flame, that spark, and help people grow.”
Dave said Dawn’s vision for Tranquility Within, and the people she touched, is her legacy.
“Your legacy isn’t the money you leave behind, or the stuff,” he said. “It’s what people talk about after you’re gone. It’s the impact that you leave on people that keeps your life and memory intact.”
Dawn struck gold after all.
Caption: Dawn Michelle Schultzer cuts the ribbon at Tranquility Within in April 2018.
Top: Dawn at Tranquility Within in 2019 from a ‘Shop Patchogue’ video produced by Benny Migliorino of Benny Migs Photo (below).
Your Long Island news, delivered.
Subscribe to the GLI Newsletter — its free
