St. Pat's Parade names its charities

The Rockville Centre St. Patrick’s Parade Committee has chosen the local-based chapter of a nationwide charity as one of the three organizations it will support through the event, scheduled for March 20.

That charity is dedicated to creating a treatment and cure to a motor neuron disease that afflicts approximately 1 in 6,000 babies born and for which approximately 1 in 40 people are genetic carriers.

The parade's mission to support three charities every year. One is local, one national and one is an Irish charity.

“The Parade’s Board of Directors takes great care and exercises tremendous due diligence in selecting our three charities every year, as it is the most important thing we will do that year,” said parade committee President Ann Marie Myatt. “This year we are extremely proud of the high quality of the three charities we will be supporting.”

Ever since the Rockville Centre St. Patrick’s Parade first stepped off in 1997, it has become one of the best attended and supported parades outside of New York City. In those 13 years, it has distributed over $550,000 to 39 separate charities. This is in keeping with parade’s description that it is “the parade that cares and shares.”

The local charity chosen this year is the Greater New York Chapter of the Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (www.fsma.org), which is based in Rockville Centre. Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a motor neuron disease that affects the voluntary muscles that are used for activities such as crawling, walking, head and neck control, and swallowing.