Helen Engelhardt writes: "I am a patriot of Brooklyn, New York - born, bred and wed."

She has spent most of her life as a writer, storyteller, activist, educator, and author, using her skills both professionally and personally to help effect change. She received a Masters in Environmental Studies from The City College, School of Education in 1978, working as a Laboratory Specialist in Biology and General Science for New York City High Schools from 1964 until her retirement in 1995. 

During those years, she pursued her interests in ecology and environmental education, becoming involved with the New Jersey Council for Environmental Education as a freelance assistant in the early 1970’s. Responsive to concerns outside her immediate milieu, she created a persuasive brochure that helped save a Virginia valley from being turned into a pumped storage project by the Virginia Electric Power Company. She was associated with the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment, from its founding in the 1970s until it closed after thirty years. Her brochure, “Trail of the Waters: A Guided Walking Tour Along the Watercourse of Prospect Park, Brooklyn,” illustrated by noted naturalist and artist John Yrizarry, was published by the Center in xxxx. Selected as Outstanding Tour Guide for the organization in 1986, she was featured in Newsday's Brooklyn Profile on November 21 of that year.

Her poems have been published in International Poetry Review, Arvon Poetry Competition Anthology, Latitude 30 degrees 18 minutes, Sunrust, riverrun, Bitterroot, Dark Horse, Mixed Voices, and Junction. She took the Columbia Journalism National Award for Best Poem in 1953 and won a Special Commendation in the Arvon Foundation International Poetry Competition in 1985. In the 1980’s she was a featured reader and participant in poetry readings held in clubs, street festivals, and radio programs, including the Brooklyn Book Arts Festivals. She has taught poetry workshops at the Women’s Place in the Adirondacks and the Gateway Environmental Study Center in Jamaica, Queens. After winning First Place in the Storytelling Competition during the Hemingway Days in Key West, FL in July 1998, she's studied with master storytellers, including Milbre Burch and Antonio Rocha, and has been a featured storyteller at folk festivals on the East Coast. 

She married audio engineer and inventor Tony Hawkins in 1973. Two years later the two of them founded Midsummer Sound Company to promote his inventions for recording and editing engineers. Their son, Alan, was born in 1982. Then, on December 21, 1988, Tony was killed in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. 

In the wake of Tony's death, Helen joined the proactive lobbying and emotional support organization, Victims of Pan Am 103, Inc.. She has served as a member of the Board, and was the fourth Editor of its publication Truth Quest from 1995 to 2001. Since the group's first press conference in February 1989, she has been a spokesperson to the media about the Lockerbie bombing. Among the media outlets that have used her as a source are Newsday, the New York Times, USA Today, Al JAzeera, Stern Magazine, Berliner Zeitung, WBAI Radio in California and WNYC Radio on Long Island.