The Marisa Tufaro Foundation, which has benefited from the benevolence of Bishop Ahr High School, is honored to be able to pay forward that generosity with support for one of the school-community’s outstanding fundraisers.
Our nonprofit recently made a donation to the Edison-based parochial school’s 21st annual Ahr Star spaghetti dinner, whose beneficiaries this year are a 9-year-old boy from Middlesex County with multiple disabilities and a 6-year-old girl from Ocean County with a rare genetic condition that has left her unable to speak and with a multitude of health problems.
The event will be held Oct. 4 from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the high school cafeteria. For information or to purchase tickets – which cost $10 for adults, $7 for students and $4 for children under 12 – please call (732) 549-1108, Ext. 648.
Since its inception, the Ahr Star program has annually adopted two children who are chronically or terminally ill, providing the children and their families with financial and spiritual support.
Last year’s event, which raised thousands of dollars, benefited a 4-year old girl with a rare form of kidney cancer and a 1-year-old boy who was born with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome, the same complex cardiac defect with which Marisa was diagnosed in utero.
According to a beautiful article recent Bishop Ahr graduate Jasmine Chang wrote about last year’s event for the school’s news magazine, “money raised from the Ahr Star spaghetti dinner was given to the families of the Ahr Stars to help defray their medical expenses. In addition, (beneficiaries) were presented with stuffed animals, puzzles, clothes and toys.”
Bishop Ahr’s outstanding fundraiser coincides with our nonprofit’s mission of helping children in need throughout the greater Middlesex County area.
We are forever indebted to the Bishop Ahr students, their parents and coaches who have supported our foundation, positioning our nonprofit to donate to Bishop Ahr’s 21st annual Ahr Star spaghetti dinner and to help other children in need.
Multiple coaches and parents of student-athletes from Bishop Ahr have donated to our nonprofit.
Members of Bishop Ahr’s baseball team wore specially designed wristbands bearing Marisa’s initials during the 2017 campaign, members of the high school’s wrestling squad sported specially designed T-shirts honoring Marisa during the 2018 Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament, and Bishop Ahr boys and girls basketball players competed in league-wide all-star games each of the past two years that benefited our nonprofit.
Some former student-athletes from the high school, including 2017 graduate Andrew Brazicki, who is now a star running back at Bentley University in Massachusetts, continue to honor Marisa, wearing one of our foundation’s wristbands on game days. Brazicki was instrumental in spearheading a gift card drive for pediatric patients in Marisa’s loving memory during a Bentley University home football contest last season.
The Ahr Star program, according to a press release the school previously shared with MyCentralJersey.com, is one of, if not the most popular service activity involving the high school’s students and faculty.
The 31-year-old program transformed into an annual spaghetti dinner – held the first Thursday each October – in 1997 as a fundraiser for then senior Sean Batiste, who was diagnosed months earlier on the day of his junior prom with leukemia.
The spaghetti dinner involves yearlong preparation, the volunteerism of approximately a quarter of the student body and about 60 teachers and administrators. Hundreds of people attend the event annually.
“Members of the local community also (get) involved, with the food being cooked by volunteers from the Woodbridge Knights of Columbus, who help at the dinner every year,” the aforementioned press release stated. “In addition, past and present members of (the school-community) donated their services to the dinner.
“Donations were so great (in past years) that the surplus spaghetti was donated to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, where many (Bishop Ahr) students volunteer their time.”
Diocese of Metuchen Bishop James Checchio, who has attended spaghetti dinners in the past, called the evening a “wonderful event that shows the true heart of this community,” according to Bishop Ahr’s press release.
“It’s so inspiring,” Checchio said, “to see young people as well as adults participating for the Ahr Star families.”
Bishop Ahr is a coeducational college preparatory school of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen. The school provides an atmosphere in which each individual’s God-given abilities are nurtured and developed. Every student is encouraged to strive for spiritual, academic, social, creative and athletic excellence through the interaction of a caring community. With Christ as its model, the Bishop Ahr community fosters a uniquely Christian environment. Each individual can grow in self-esteem, in social and moral responsibility and in those values needed to face the challenges of tomorrow’s world.