STEAM Shack gains support

Out of something tragic, you try to make something good of it.”

Richard Rosenberg, Foundation founder

The Laura Rosenberg Foundation, a 35-year-old Hewlett-based charitable organization, will partially fund a new program at Camp Sunrise that aims to help children with cancer learn state-of-the-art technology skills.

Established in 1981 by Richard and Norma Rosenberg after the death of their oldest child, Laura, 14, from acute myelocytic leukemia, the foundation helps fund pediatric leukemia research programs at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan; Happiness is Camping, a year-round sleep-away camp in New Jersey for children with cancer; Camp Sunrise, a summer day camp in Wheatley Heights for kids with cancer and their siblings; and the Hewlett-based SIBSPlace, which provides emotional and academic support for children ages 5 to 17 who have siblings with cancer or another devastating illness or a parent with cancer.

“Out of something tragic, you try to make something good of it,” Richard Rosenberg said. “You can carry on or drive yourself crazy.” Carrying on for four decades, the Rosenbergs built the foundation into an organization that raises $100,000 annually. They have two grown sons, Michael, who now manages the foundation, and Robert. 

The foundation’s donation to the Camp Sunrise project has yet to be determined, Richard said.  

Several people gathered at the Rosenberg home in Hewlett on Nov. 22 to listen to a presentation by David Miller, a Roslyn resident and a Camp Sunrise board member, and his son, Max, a junior at Friends Academy, who was a camp counselor this summer and bonded with a 9-year-old boy over computers. “He told me he really wanted to learn how to code, and that he really wished that the camp had a computer lab,” Max said.

Max, a self-described computer geek who is a manager and assistant captain of the Friends robotics team, began generating ideas for what is now being called the Laura Rosenberg STEAM Shack. The acronym stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics, an evolving, integrated approach to teaching that many schools apply to their curricula. “It is so much easier to learn when doing it together,” Max said.

The goal is to build a 1,280-square-foot, cantilever-design building using four recycled shipping containers before camp starts next summer that will include solar panels for sustainability, at a cost of $250,000. As of press time, donations totaled a little over $82,000. “We will teach something that will be life-changing,” David Miller said.

The plan is for the shack to have computers on which children can learn coding, a dozen 3-D printers, the ability for kids to connect with their peers from the hospital or their home — on steamshack.org — and to create projects, including music mixes and videos. The future goal is to make the shack portable and bring it to the 30 hospitals with which Camp Sunrise is affiliated in the U.S. and Israel, and its four other camps, including one in Israel.

Max’s first brush with cancer occurred when he was 7. One of his closet friends, Max Russ, couldn’t attend his birthday party because he was in the hospital with a fever. Two days later, Max Russ was diagnosed with cancer. David Miller made a call, and got the Russ family to take part in Camp Sunrise that summer. Thus began David’s involvement with the camp. 

Max Russ, now a healthy 16-year-old, was also a camp counselor last summer. His father, Adam, is also a Sunrise board member. 

“It’s really incredible what these camps do for these kids,” said Camp Sunrise Director Deanna Slade. 

To support the STEAM Shack project, go to http://bit.ly/2cTeHT8. For more about the Laura Rosenberg Foundation, visit laurarosenbergfoundation.org.