Cooking up charity for great cause

Smoke was not the only thing in the air at Valley Stream State Park on Aug. 27 with several people vocalizing their well wishes for children. Many local kids, teens and grown-ups gathered for good eating from 2 to 6 p.m. to support a noble cause — the Make-A-Wish Foundation. And Valley Stream resident Samantha Conde, an event organizer, was thrilled to give back to her community.

“I like helping people,” Conde said. “A lot of people think you cannot really do much, but you can make a difference.”

Conde, 14, spearheaded the event after getting some very affluent inspiration from someone very close — her dad. “He told me that as you get older, ‘I want you to start making differences,’” Conde said. “‘I want you to do a project.’”

Her father’s wishes for her did come true when Conde ran with the idea that took off like a rocket. Conde, along with her neigborhood friends, Isha Walia, 15, and Carlos Cornejo, 15, put their heads together to come up with the perfect idea to help this charity. “We were going to have a car wash but could not because of Valley Stream restrictions,” Walia said. “We had an idea for walking dogs, but decided on a barbecue.”

The enthuasitic teens spent all of last month preparing for the barbecue. “We did the planning on our own,” Waila said.

And they got the word out with flyers and social networking on Facebook. “We always found people in school and a few people helped us with [putting up] tables,” Walia said. “The barbecue was [told] to everyone.” With several people showing up, the teens still wanted to reach 100 people even if some were fashionably late.

The crowd of local folks were able to eat good old fashioned barbecue for $7, with all the money donated to Make-A-Wish. And Conde was hoping that maybe everyone would start a dance party.

But all three teens were extremely grateful for all the neighborhood help. “We got some help from the schools,” Cornejo said. And Walia added that they had a lot of friends who volunteered their time to make the event possible.

Residents like Sandra Proto were very eager to support the event. “It is a nice gesture,” Proto said. “It is very thoughtful — kids looking out for kids.”

Alyssa Diaz, another resident, said it was great what the teens were doing for the charity. And Chris Stewart said he was very happy at the barbecue. “It think it is very good what Samantha, Isha and Carlos are doing,” he said. “You do not really see this a lot in Valley Stream with young people.”