By JOSEPH KELLARD
Last Wednesday, Oceanside Middle School held a phone-a-thon from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. to raise funds to support the continuing expansion of South Nassau Communities Hospital's Breast Health and Gyn Center, a facility that benefits the diagnosis and treatment of women who are confronted with the health effects of breast cancer.
Toward this cause, the students raised $4,100 for this now-annual event. The phone-a-thon, run this year by Honor Society advisor and science teacher Jeanette Vitale, represents that fifth such fund-raiser undertaken by the school in recent years. The first two raised money for cystic fibrosis; the last three for breast cancer.
Originally, the school became involved in these particular causes through people who either attended or worked at the school. The fund-raiser for cystic fibrosis was started after a student who had a relative with the diseased asked if they could do something to support the fight against it; the efforts to raise funds for breast cancer came after a staff member at the school was diagnosed with the disease.
I wanted to try to help out people who are less fortunate. I felt if I came here to call people to try to get donations, I'm helping them in a way that I can, said eighth-grader Tori Dantona, who participated in her first phone-a-thon.
Dantona was among 38 students who participated in this particular phone-a-thon. While she and about 20 other students made calls to residents in the community and wrote down the names of the donors and the amount they gave, the remaining students took the papers on which this information was written, stuffed them in envelopes, and brought them up to the postal baskets where they would be mailed the next day.
The kids did a great job. By the end of the phone-a-thon at 9 p.m. the students had all the envelopes stuffed and categorized and ready to go out in the mail. We're hoping by having a speedy turnaround, that people's generosity will be maximized, said Principal Bob Fenter, who headed the fund-raiser in years past.
In addition to the phone-a-thon, organizers have the students meet with women stricken with breast cancer. Fenter believes this brings the cause the students are working for down to reality. In the past, they have met at a luncheon and a dinner, and this year the students will visit the Gyn center, where they will hand the hospital's administrators a check.
It's important to have the kids know why they are coming down and making calls, and every year I want to do something different. This year I'd like the students to be there and see what it is they are helping to build, Fenter said.
Said eight-grader Graig Churchill, who also participated in his first phone-a-thon, There was one house that I called and the person I asked to make a contribution said because they had breast cancer they would donate. So that really impacted me as to what I was doing while I was on the phone.
Fenter said the center can benefit from funds to further increase both the services and the comfort of the patients who are there.
We're hoping to help not only in the broader cause of fighting breast cancer, but also help make our local residents who are suffering from this illness get some comfort during a very difficult time, he said.
