Michael Grzankowski, a 7-year-old from Laurence Harbor who has already undergone three open-heart surgeries to repair a severe cardiac defect, will serve as the ceremonial starter for the first annual Greater Middlesex Conference Baseball Coaches Association charity golf outing.
All proceeds from the event, sponsored by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, will benefit The Marisa Tufaro Foundation.
The outing will be held Sunday at Bunker Hill Golf Course in Princeton (details here). Members of the coaches association and our nonprofit will make a special presentation to Michael in honor of his courage and community service.
Established less than four years ago in loving memory of Marisa, our tax-exempt nonprofit has already donated nearly $200,000 to help pediatric patients and other children in need throughout the greater Middlesex County area.
Our nonprofit has also donated thousands of toys, nonperishable food items, winter jackets, baby supplies and other items upon which we have placed no monetary value.
The Marisa Tufaro Foundation has benefited from dozens of fundraisers, ranging in size from lemonade stands on suburban streets, such as that which Michael and his 4-year-old sister Justina recently conducted, to GMC -wide all-star games and tournaments in which student-athletes from the entire league have participated.
In 2019, the Grzankowski family, including Mike and Jennifer, the parents of Michael and Justina, collected hundreds of holiday presents for a toy drive benefitting pediatric patients on behalf of our nonprofit. The presents were among thousands delivered to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital (BMSCH). The Grzankowskis collected the toys from relatives, friends, coworkers, and others.
Michael was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), the same severe congenital cardiac defect with which Marisa Tufaro was born and one that usually requires a series of three open-heart surgeries to correct.
Michael underwent his first reconstructive operation six days after he was born, had his second repair six months later, and underwent his third open-heart surgery in 2018 at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), which pioneered the life-saving intervention.
In 2019, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation established a fund at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, from which Marisa received outstanding care for her entire life, to provide financial support to families of pediatric patients from Middlesex County in medical crisis by helping to pay medical, personal, or incidental expenses.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 960 babies are born annually in the United States with HLHS, a defect in which the left side of the heart, which receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it to the body, is underdeveloped.
Through a series of reconstructive operations, surgeons are able to redirect the oxygen-rich blood and oxygen-poor blood, enabling the right side of the heart to essentially assume the function of the left side, which is to pump oxygenated blood to the body, and allowing deoxygenated blood to flow from the veins to the lungs without passing through the heart.
Michael has been virtually fearless and remarkably resilient through his three open-heart surgeries and multiple cardiac catheterizations.
Baseball now consumes most of Michael’s life. The sport has led to relationships with the South Amboy High School and Somerset Patriots baseball teams, both of which have embraced the inspirational boy.
Michael joined the Somerset Patriots on the field at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater for the final day of spring training in 2018, spending time with the players and watching batting practice. The team presented him with autographed game-used bats and a gift bag of Somerset Patriots merchandise, including a red baseball glove. Michael’s image once graced the cover of the team’s game program.
“Being at such a young age and going through what he had to go through, and what he’s still going through, it touches you,” former Somerset Patriots infielder Scott Kelly told MyCentralJersey.com in an interview that year.
“It puts things in perspective for everyone. He’s smiling with what he has to go through, and it’s a thousand times harder than anything any of us have to go through on a daily basis. He was a breath of fresh air with his smile, his presence, his personality and just who he was.”
Our nonprofit is eternally grateful to Michael and the entire Grzankowski family. We hope their kindness is exponentially returned.