Fighting for children’s health in America

Lynbrook’s Georgina Cornago is on a mission to spread food allergies awareness across the country through her foundation, Love For Giovanni.

Cornago’s started the foundation after losing her son, Giovanni, in 2013 to a food allergy. Since then, Cornago continues to raise awareness about the seriousness of food allergies. She was featured on Good Morning America last week and has no plans of stopping her mission to educate the public on anaphylactic shock any time soon.

“Right after we lost Giovanni, we knew that we needed to have more awareness about food allergies,” Cornago said. “Our mission for the foundation is to educate people about food allergies, give epinephrine training, and also to make epinephrine injectors available in many places.”

In 2019, Cornago was able to make it so first responders carry and administer epinephrine through Gio’s Law.

This legislation was named in honor of Giovanni Cipriano and signed into law by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. This law was introduced in the by State Sen. Todd Kaminsky mandating all firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical service personnel be trained and equipped with life-saving epinephrine auto-injectors to prevent a repeat of what happened to Cipriano. Before it was a state law, Cornago was able to get epinephrine in the Lynbrook police department.

“(Former) Mayor Hendricks of Lynbrook helped me get epinephrine into Lynbrook before anywhere else,” Cornago said. “So I was able to push this even further to the state level with the help of Hendricks.” To push it into the national spotlight, Cornago wanted to tell her story on a national news network.

Nazia DeFrank, a veteran television producer from Lynbrook, was able to coordinate Cornago’s recent appearance on GMA. “Cornago wanted to showcase her story on a large media platform to give it the attention it deserves and help the foundation reach a larger audience,” DeFrank said. Cornago was there with police chief Brian Paladino who was instrumental in passing Gio’s Law.

Now that she has the attention of people all across the country, Cornago’s goal is to “see the availability of epinephrine everywhere. I would love to see epinephrine available in public places, such as changing the way that it is available in schools.”

Cornago mentioned how epinephrine in schools is mostly just locked up in nurse’s offices, making it more difficult to gain access when people really need an injection.

“Just in the last week, we lost two children from food allergies,” Cornago said. “And when they needed their EpiPen, it was locked in the nurse’s office.” This was during after school hours so the nurse was not able to get the EpiPens to the kids in time.

According to Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, about 32 million U.S. citizens have food allergies with 5.6 million being kids. Each year in the U.S., it is estimated that anaphylaxis to food results in 90,000 emergency room visits. These stats are why Cornago is pushing for epinephrine to be more accessible, especially in schools.

“To have EpiPen kits put on different floors of the schools, similar to AED machines, is something that I am fighting for,” Cornago said. She is also working to get EpiPen kits in public arenas in the same place that AED machines are located.

Along with trying to implement EpiPens in more public areas, Cornago was able to get public signs installed in parks in Lynbrook and Rockville Centre that has vital information on it regarding food allergies.

“The signs ask the public not to bring food into the play area,” Cornago said. “And it gives kids certain tips such as washing your hands before going into the play area and lets them know that one in 13 children has food allergies and they can cause a life threatening reaction.” The signs themselves provide important information, but Cornago didn’t stop there at sending her message across to residents.

With Halloween being a scary time for people with food allergies, Cornago hosts “Trunk or Treat” to make sure that kids are not only having fun, but are also safe. “Instead of going from house to house, kids go from car to car in Greiss Park,” Cornago said. “Everyone picks a theme and you get to decorate your car and instead of giving out candy, everyone gives out different types of toys like little trinkets, stickers, glow sticks, and pencils.”

Cornago hosts other events throughout the year to raise awareness about food allergies. The main message that Cornago wants to get across is “food allergies are not something to be taken lightly or to joke about and they need to be taken seriously.”

She hopes that she can continue to spread this message not only in Lynbrook and New York State, but to people across the country.