Our foundation is committed to being a source of comfort to hospitalized children and their families

The Marisa Tufaro Foundation is committed to being a source of comfort to hospitalized children and their families.

Please click on the links below to read about some of the ways our tax-exempt nonprofit, since its inception on July 30, 2017, have fulfilled that mission.

• Partnered with Woodbridge High School, the Central Jersey bowling community and the Port Reading Fire Department and EMS to deliver more than 1,000 toys to patients at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital this holiday season.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Partnered with the Middlesex County Association of School Administrators to offer financial relief to parents of children in medical crisis who lost wages while caring for their child at the hospital, who lack health insurance or whose insurance provider won’t cover certain medical expenses.
  
  
• Donated to Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital’s newly established extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) program, a specialized cardiac and respiratory support system that saved Marisa’s life at another medical facility following her heart transplant.
  
  
• Conducted a boardwalk-themed Family Fun Night for consecutive years at PSE&G Children’s Specialized Hospital, where the sights, sounds and smells of the Jersey Shore were brought to patients and their families through carnival games, food, prizes, music and more.
  
  
• Partnered with the Saint Joseph High School football program to pack and donate more than 100 “Weekend Snack Bags” for pediatric patients’ families at PSE&G Children’s Specialized Hospital in New Brunswick.
  
  
• Partnered with Old Bridge and South Brunswick high schools to collect thousands of toys for pediatric patients at Saint Peter’s University Children’s Hospital and Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital.
  
  
• Supported instruction and supplies for an art therapy program at Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital, to which our foundation also provided funds for infant mobiles and toy cars staff use to transport children to the operating room for surgery.
  
  
• Partnered with Teamwork Unlimited Foundation to provide medical alert bracelets to children with autism and pediatric patients with chronic illness who receive outstanding care from Children’s Specialized Hospital, which annually serves more than 34,000 children statewide.
  
  
• Provided new iPads and gaming system accessories (Xbox and PS4 games, controllers, chargers) for adolescent patients at Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital.
  
  
• Partnered with Woodbridge High School and the Central Jersey bowling community to deliver hundreds of toys to patients at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, where Marisa underwent a successful heart transplant.
  
  
• As a way of giving back to the Rutgers University baseball program, whose roster features several players that have supported our nonprofit, our foundation matched the Scarlet Knights’ fundraising efforts with a donation to Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital’s child life program.
  
  
• Provided gift cards for pediatric patients and their families.
  
  
  
• Provided James Monroe Elementary School students with food items to fill a hundred “Weekend Snack Bags” for pediatric patients’ families.
  
  
• Provided meals and goods for families staying at the Ronald McDonald House of Central Jersey.
  
  
• Partnered with Middlesex High School to conduct a coat drive for Middlesex County children.

Marisa received outstanding care from the staff and physicians at Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, Saint Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, New York-Presbyterian’s Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital and from some of the outpatient services that Children’s Specialized Hospital provides.

During hospital admissions, Marisa and her parents benefited immensely from the generosity of a multitude of organizations.

Cyndi and Greg are grateful for the opportunity to pay forward the kindness of others and are committed to making this initiative a paramount focus of the foundation’s mission.