Thursday, October 1, 2026
To help Wendy Abrams’s 1-year-old son, Buddy, have the simple childhood memory of swinging in a swing, Dime Bank and the Rockville Centre School District worked together to install a handicap swing at the Riverside School.
Buddy has a glioblastoma of the brain stem, a type of brain tumor. The placement of the tumor affects his muscle tone and makes it so he can’t sit upright.
Abrams wanted to get a special swing installed at the Recreation Center for her son.
“I went through a foundation to try and get the swing at the Rockville Centre Recreation Center,” she said. “And my son’s prognosis, when they first gave it to me, was that he had three to six months. And it had been three months and the swing still wasn’t there.”
Abrams, the branch manager at the Dime Bank in Cedarhurst, mentioned her struggle to get the swing installed to her boss, Regional Manager Dorene Finnegan.
“We’re very family orientated,” Finnegan said. “I went to the boss and asked if we could buy [the swing], and they absolutely jumped on it.”
The Rec Center said that the bank could install the swing there, but that it would have to wait because work was being done on the playground. Because of that, the swing might not have been able to be installed for up to a year.
So Finnegan reached out to the Rockville Centre School District, which agreed to have the swing installed at Riverside.
The swing will be up during the summer and usable by anyone. During the school year, it will come down during the week and be put back up on weekends for public use.
“I just feel that other kids should know this exists,” Abrams said. “Because there isn’t anything like it that I’m aware of in the surrounding towns. And I looked.”
