Learning to make a difference

A debate between a husband and wife who lost a son to cancer helped to inspire nearly 100 second-graders at Ogden Elementary School to make a difference and that difference was felt by everyone who attended Monday’s assembly.

Matt Perlungher recounted how he and his wife Erica argued whether their son Jack – suffering from a rare form of kidney cancer – should go to school. “The Morgan Center was the answer to our prayers,” said Perlungher, who noted that concerns centered on Jack’s compromised immune system. The Plainview-based Morgan Center, founded by Bay Shore residents Rod and Nancy Zuch eight years ago, is the only pre-school in the nation for children with cancer.

The Zuchs established the school after their daughter Morgan, now a healthy 12-year old, who battled acute lymphoblastic leukemia told her parents that she felt different from other children because she wasn’t going to school. “It makes children feel like other children,” Morgan said, about the center her parents founded.

Ogden second-grade teacher AnnMarie Castrogiovanni is a friend of the Perlunghers and shortly after 5-year-old Jack’s death on Sept. 13 of last year, she flipped through the USA Weekend Magazine and saw an article about “National Make A difference Day,” the fourth Sunday in October.

Inspired by Jack’s memory, Castrogiovanni enlisted the help of colleagues Melissa Duhl, Jennifer Hamilton and Stephanie Fleming, along with Duhl’s teaching assistant Nina Livingston. The educators had the students take part in a “good deed-a-thon” where they performed chores and earned money from their sponsors. They collected $1,300 and donated that to the Morgan Center in Jack’s memory. In 2010, the fourth Sunday of October would have been Jack’s sixth birthday.

Castrogiovanni entered what the students did into a databank on the USA Weekend Magazine website. The Ogden students were selected as one of 10 winners to receive $10,000 for a charity of their choice. The money is put up by the magazine and Newman’s Own (the food company and not-for-profit organization founded by the late actor Paul Newman and author A.E. Hotchner in 1982).

Castrogiovanni and Duhl attended a luncheon in Washington, D.C., where the winners were honored, and Ogden’s deeds were highlighted in the April 10 edition of USA Weekend. The students learned much from their good deeds, including Ethan Eisenberg’s humorous line: “Helping people is respected, donating money is even more respected.”

The Perlunghers, the Morgan Center and the Ogden second-graders came together as the students presented the $10,000 check to Nancy and Morgan Zuch. “We are very thankful for the donation, but it is about the kids making a difference, that is so important,” Nancy said. The donation made in Jack’s memory will buy computers for the second Morgan Center opening this fall in Islip.