Monday, July 7, 2025
Seniors at H. Frank Carey High School ended the school year with a touching tribute to friends and family suffering from cancer. Coordinating with the American Cancer Society, the seniors spent countless hours over the course of their last year at the high school planning a Relay for Life on May 30 — the first time the school has hosted the event since 2018.
As of June 5, over $20,000 was raised — and still counting.
“We never had a chance to experience what Relay for Life was all about,” said Magdalena Koutsoumbaris, a senior on the event’s entertainment committee. “We wanted to do something — like one last final thing for our senior year. We were so excited.”
The group of students that organized the event, who were juniors at the time, approached H. Frank Carey Principal Jennifer Alaimo in May of last year, Magdalena recalled. From there, the students hosted meetings throughout the 2024-25 school year, contacting Jen Denker, a development manager at the American Cancer Society, whom they coordinated the event with.
Two hours before the 5 p.m. opening ceremony began, the committee hosted a survivor dinner in which they invited 15 cancer survivors and their families to honor their fight against the deadly disease. “It was very sentimental,” Magdalena said.
Magdalena also credited Karine McGuiness, a teacher at H. Frank Carey and chairperson for the Relay for Life event, for helping her and her classmates navigate the planning. McGuiness helped plan the school’s 2018 relay.
Several community groups joined the effort, including the Carey Dad’s Club, the H. Frank Carey Parent Teacher Student Association, and several student-led committees tasked with catering food, fundraising, purchasing luminaries, collecting artwork, conducting raffles, organizing entertainment and more.
Between monetary donations and raffle ticket sales, as well as food and bake sales, the student committee raised thousands of dollars before the event even began, Principal Jennifer Alaimo said. The school also hosted fundraising events throughout the school year called “Coin Wars,” in which students donated loose change for the relay.
Alaimo said $1,700 was raised in coins alone.
“It has taken the entire village of H. Frank Carey to pull off this event,” Alaimo stressed. “It brings out the entire community.”
Alaimo recalled the students approaching her about the event, which she quickly agreed to because of her own personal connection with the cause. Alaimo was a caretaker for her mother, who died of cancer at the age of 45, as well as her mother-in-law, who continues to battle breast cancer for over 30 years.
“It’s a huge undertaking for a worthy cause,” she said, emphasizing that the event is student-driven. “The beautiful part is that you work with the Relay for Life program, and they help you coordinate everything.”
Part of that coordination, Alaimo explained, is done online. Teams register on the Relay for Life website and can begin fundraising from there.
Karine McGuiness said there were 33 teams registered online, all of who are either students or community members, competing against each other to raise the most money for the event. It’s all in good fun, she said, and is not the main focus of the program.
Some attendees of the event were not from the Franklin Square community, she continued. Several cancer survivors from other Long Island towns showed up in solidarity with the students for the relay. McGuiness said they praised the event.
“There was one member in particular who said she walked five miles throughout the night, and she’d never done that before,” McGuiness said, adding that the woman was also a cancer survivor. “For the last couple of laps, our students walked with her. It was very, very touching, and emotional.”
Luminaries — candles lit to honor the memory of those who died from cancer — were also purchased online. Later in the evening after the sun went down, attendees of the H. Frank Carey event held a luminary ceremony, remembering those close to them who lost their battle with cancer.
Cancer remains the second leading cause of death in adults, trailing closely behind heart disease. Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children, claiming the lives of 100,000 children worldwide each year — 1,600 of which come from the United States.
Jack Lewinger, 19, an H. Frank Carey alumnus who sang the national anthem during the opening ceremony, is a childhood cancer survivor alongside his twin sister, Maddy. When the student committee contacted him in October, he immediately cleared his schedule to ensure he could be there.
In April 2008, the twins were diagnosed with Wilms’ Tumor — a rare kidney cancer that primarily affects children — at the age of 2. Only 650 cases are diagnosed each year in the U.S. Luckily, there is a high rate of survival, and 90 percent of children survive at least five years after their diagnosis.
Jack recounted how the twins’ mother, Maura Lewinger, took Maddy for testing after his sister began experiencing throbbing pain throughout her body. To their surprise, Maddy tested positive for cancer. Maura decided to test Jack on a superstition. Jack also tested positive.
“Everyone was shocked,” Jack said. “Thank God that superstition came in, because it could have gotten so much worse.”
Luckily, Jack’s cancer was caught much earlier than his sister’s, only advancing to stage II compared to Maddy’s stage IV diagnosis. He battled with the disease for less than a year, and Maddy battled it for about three years.
“Being in the hospital for part of your childhood really takes something away from you,” Jack said. The ACS, he continued, brought their childhood back to him and his sister — something he is thankful for.
Jack said the two are doing well 17 years later — he just finished his sophomore year at Long Island University majoring in musical theater, and Maddy is studying abroad in Oxford, England. They two also served as camp counselors at Sunrise Day Camp in Wyandanchwhich serves children suffering from all stages of cancer — a program Jack and Maddy participated in as children.
Regular testing is one of Jack’s precautionary measures in catching cancer early in case he relapses, which he encouraged others to do, as well.
“People need to know what cancer does to people,” Jack said. “You don’t just battle cancer and live and go through it. There are very long-term affects to it, and it’s good to bring awareness to it.”
He said the ACS deserves more recognition for the work they do for those suffering from cancer and their families and lauded their support to his family as they endured such an emotional experience.
“This is a huge thing for many people,” Magdalena said of the relay. “It touches so many people’s hearts. We’re very close-knit, and we all love each other, so we really wanted to do this for our community and for our school for one last hurrah.”
“The class of 2025 — they are truly special,” Alaimo said. “Not only did they bring such light to H. Frank Carey, their spirit has been the strongest I’ve ever seen. My hope is that they left this lasting legacy that our underclassmen are going to follow in their footsteps.”
McGuiness, whom the seniors surprised with a moment of recognition during the opening ceremony in appreciation of her tireless efforts organizing the event, said cancer affects everybody in one way, shape or form. She said it’s important to come together and support one another in fighting the deadly disease.
“That’s really just a matter of what it is,” she said. “It’s all about the community.”
