The Greater Middlesex Conference swimming community is once again pooling its resources to make a splash for The Marisa Tufaro Foundation.
Hundreds of student-athletes from the league’s high school teams will become “Marisa’s Minnows,” participating for the second consecutive year in a swim event, with all proceeds benefiting the tax-exempt nonprofit, whose mission is to help children in need throughout the greater Middlesex County area.
Established just over two years ago, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation has already made a profound impact, donating more than $100,000 and spearheading multiple community initiatives to help pediatric patients and other children in need.
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.
In addition, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation awards college scholarship dollars to exceptional high school students who advance the nonprofit’s mission.
Former conference swimmers Emma Broggi of Piscataway and Libby Dobrzynski of Sayreville, who graduated earlier this year, were recipients of 2019 Marisa Tufaro Foundation Greater Middlesex Conference Student-Athlete Scholarships.
The Raritan Bay Area YMCA of Perth Amboy is once again providing its state-of-the art facility including a 10-lane competition pool for the event, which will be held Dec. 7 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
All participants will receive a T-shirt in their respective school colors as well as a complimentary silicone wristband, courtesy of The Marisa Tufaro Foundation.
Marisa Tufaro, who would have been a junior this year at Edison High School, was born with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome, a complex cardiac defect which required six open-heart surgeries. Marisa developed two life-threatening conditions that necessitated a heart transplant. The transplant was supposed to extend her life, but tragically cut it short when a postoperative complication developed into a rare form of blood cancer to which Marisa succumbed in 2017 at the age of 13. Despite being hospitalized for more than two years and maintaining hundreds of doctor’s appointments, Marisa, who was an honor roll student in elementary and middle school, lived a vibrant life that inspired.
Several of Marisa’s former classmates will be participating in this year’s swim event, which has been dubbed Practice for a Purpose.
More than 500 swimmers from 34 high school girls and boys teams and one club program generated more than $10,000 for The Marisa Tufaro Foundation during last year’s fundraiser.
The “Minnows for Marisa” slogan the conference’s swimming community selected for its fundraiser to benefit our nonprofit was more than just a literary device.
The clever use of alliteration for the event’s title proved apropos as the carefully chosen words reflected what transpired last year for nearly six hours on Dec. 1 inside the Raritan Bay Area YMCA, where competitors from rival programs swam together, as minnows will in large shoals, for a common cause.
“As much as we are trying to create awareness and raise money for the foundation, it (was) also a way to bring all the teams and all the swimmers and all the coaches together for a fun purpose,” said Kate Dauphinee, the head coach at Mother Seton Regional High School who worked with Metuchen High School Athletics Director John Cathcart and Raritan Bay Area YMCA President and CEO Steve Jobin to organize the event.
The Raritan Valley YMCA Riptide, which practices at the Raritan Bay Area YMCA, joined the scholastic swimmers as minnows.
Teams were assigned lanes and pool times, with each using its opportunity in the water to either conduct a formal practice, to work on different strokes, to increase stamina or to simply have fun in the season-opening event. All of the participants collectively swam inordinate miles of laps.
The high school and club teams worked independently to raise money for The Marisa Tufaro Foundation, eventually pooling their resources. Some creatively used crowdfunding platforms to involve people outside their own school-communities, and others held events such as dress-down days to generate donations.
“The organization rivaled that of any type of high-profile tournament in that the teams were well arranged and there was a lot of spirit,” said Frank Noppenberger, executive director of the Greater Middlesex Conference and a member of The Marisa Tufaro Foundation’s board of trustees.
“What was most impressive to me was all the kids and coaches who came out to pay it forward. I’m almost certain participation wasn’t mandatory, but the kids understood that it was for a good cause. Along with that, you saw teams bonding in a non-competitive atmosphere, which I think is the first step in developing great sportsmanship.”
Noppenberger, who has been involved with scholastic sports as a coach and athletics administrator for more than four decades, said the event was among the most impressive he has ever attended.
All of last year’s participants received a commemorative T-shirt in their respective school colors, which Lauren Piovoso, a Metuchen High School swimmer, designed for the event, as well as a complimentary silicone wristband, courtesy of The Marisa Tufaro Foundation.
Piovoso said she elected to use a butterfly swimmer in her T-shirt design because one of The Marisa Tufaro Foundation’s mantras is that those who support the nonprofit “fly with an angel.”
“I incorporated the hearts as angel’s wings and added them to the swimmer doing the butterfly stroke to show the love that the community gives to the foundation,” said Piovoso, noting she added a halo because she felt it was “a nice way to honor Marisa, who is an angel.”
Minnows for Marisa was made possible through the remarkable efforts of many individuals including all of the GMC coaches, Wardlaw-Hartridge School Athletics Director Karl Miran, Raritan Bay Area YMCA staff members Samantha Hague, Darian Russell and Mary Ann Lawrence, and all who volunteered to work the day of the event.
Volunteers last year included Dr. Joseph Gaffney, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Division Chief, Pediatric Cardiology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, who cared for Marisa throughout her entire life, and Candice Smith, a professor at the Chamberlain University College of Nursing in North Brunswick, who cared for Marisa when she was a patient in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center.
Cathcart said he first broached the idea of conducting a fundraiser for The Marisa Tufaro Foundation during the conference’s year-end meeting at the conclusion of the 2017-18 season.
“Their faces lit up,” Cathcart said of the coaches in attendance at the meeting. “I thought the swim group would want to get involved.”
Cathcart said the event could never have come to fruition without the leadership and expertise of Dauphinee, who has conducted similar fundraisers for Autism New Jersey through her role as site director for the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey’s Aquatics and Fitness Center, and without the Raritan Bay Area YMCA’s staff and facility.
“The Y is about teaching kids how to care for their neighbors and how to really learn from that,” said Jobin, whose Raritan Bay Area YMCA, which hosts the Greater Middlesex Conference Championships, has seating for 300 in a viewing gallery and for 400 more on the pool deck.
“We want kids to understand there is a greater purpose and why we should care about others. That’s why we wanted to do a (fundraiser) and invite all the teams from the county. That’s all part of it. It gives everybody an opportunity to learn more about the foundation so they can
Marisa Tufaro’s father, Greg, a sports writer with the Home News Tribune, was privileged to address all of the Greater Middlesex Conference’s coaches during a meeting prior to the event, and was afforded an opportunity to speak with the Edison High School swimmers, some of who were Marisa’s classmates, before the event.
New Jersey State Senator Patrick J. Diegnan Jr., who is a member of The Marisa Tufaro Foundation’s board of trustees, said, “By its nature, sports are competitive, and this event proves that young people, in particular, will always join together for a common cause and do what is right.
“We should celebrate their participation in this outstanding event.”