Woodbridge’s football team’s home opener against South Plainfield raises more than $2,000 for The Marisa Tufaro Foundation

Spectators supporting host Woodbridge and visiting South Plainfield also supported The Marisa Tufaro Foundation as the Barrons donated the entire gate to our nonprofit from their football team’s home opener at Nicholas A. Priscoe Stadium on Friday night.

This marked the second consecutive year that the Woodbridge High School gridirion program donated the entire gate from its home opener to our foundation.

Coaches and administrators from Woodbridge and South Plainfield high schools wore purple Marisa Tufaro Foundation T-shirts on the sidelines during the Sept. 20 game, while Woodbridge cheerleaders and members of the student section also wore purple, the official color of our nonprofit.

In just over two years, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation, through the remarkable generosity of others, has made a profound impact, donating more than $100,000 to fulfill its mission of helping pediatric patients and other children in need throughout the greater Middlesex County area.

The Marisa Tufaro Foundation, which makes community service an integral part of its mission, has also spearheaded multiple community initiatives, resulting in the collection of thousands of toys, nonperishable food, winter coats, baby supplies and other items for donation upon which the nonprofit has placed no monetary value.

Woodbridge and South Plainfield have been among our nonprofit’s biggest and most loyal supporters. The South Plainfield wrestling program’s annual Marisa Tufaro Memorial Dual Meet with Old Bridge has raised $8,000 for our nonprofit.

In Marisa’s loving memory, Woodbridge High School fully funds a Marisa Tufaro Memorial Scholarship, awarded annually to two exceptional Woodbridge seniors who strive for excellence academically, athletically or in the arts, who overcame adversity (not limited to medical challenges) and who epitomize the caring spirit that the Tufaro family believes makes the Woodbridge school-community special.

Woodbridge has donated its facilities and volunteered its staff to host the Greater Middlesex Conference All-Star girls and boys basketball games, with all proceeds from the doubleheader benefiting our foundation.

Woodbridge administrators also conduct the Tecmo Bowl for Tufaro, a retro football video game tournament which raises money for our nonprofit.

In addition, the school has donated money collected from a dress down day to our foundation.

Last year, Woodbridge conducted yet another fundraiser, the first annual Marisa Tufaro Classic, a bowling tournament featuring more than 30 Central Jersey high schools at which holiday presents were collected for pediatric patients.

Woodbridge student-athletes have participated in a multitude of other events that benefited our foundation including conference-wide All-Star baseball games and a league-wide swim-a-thon.

The support of schools such as Woodbridge and South Plainfield enable Marisa’s parents, Cyndi and Greg, to give back to the residents of a community that has long provided their family with overwhelming love and support.

The Marisa Tufaro Foundation has awarded 17 college academic scholarships in Marisa’s name to high school seniors and an additional 13 scholarships for middle school and elementary school students to attend a weeklong summer art camp at Rutgers University’s Zimmerli Art Museum.

Committed to being a source of comfort to hospitalized children and their families, as well as providing assistance to underserved children, the foundation also partners with other local nonprofits who share its mission.

The foundation has assisted multiple families whose children are in medical crisis, providing financial support through the payment of medical and/or personal expenses to help lessen the burden of parents who have lost wages while spending time at the hospital. Respecting their privacy, the foundation never divulges the names of those individuals or the dollar amount of assistance it provides.

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital featured the foundation in the Spring 2019 edition of its Healthy Together magazine, while Children’s Specialized Hospital profiled the nonprofit in its most recent annual report, released earlier this month. News 12 New Jersey’s Della Crews featured The Marisa Tufaro Foundation on one of her weekly Spotlight New Jersey broadcasts.

The foundation has conducted several high-profile events including a boardwalk-themed Family Fun Night for pediatric patients and their families at a children’s hospital, a Day at the Ballpark for Special Olympic athletes and their families which Teamwork Unlimited Foundation co-sponsored, and a Holiday Knight toy drive at an Old Bridge High School football game.

Marisa, who would have been a junior at Edison High School, was born with a complex cardiac defect that required six open-heart surgeries. Despite being hospitalized for more than two years and maintaining hundreds of doctor’s appointments, she lived a vibrant life that inspired. After her sixth surgery, Marisa developed two life-threatening conditions that necessitated a heart transplant. A postoperative complication developed into a rare form of cancer that riddled her brain and body. Marisa succumbed to her illness following a valiant battle on Jan. 30, 2017. She was just 13 years old.

The foundation’s eight-member board of trustees features Senator Patrick J. Diegnan Jr., Greater Middlesex Conference Executive Director Frank Noppenberger and Dr. Joseph Gaffney, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Division Chief, Pediatric Cardiology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.

Marisa’s parents are grateful beyond words for every single penny and every single second of time that has been donated to the nonprofit bearing their daughter’s name.

Blessed with incredible support, Cyndi, a longtime Edison Township Public Schools educator, and Greg, a sports writer with the Home News Tribune and MyCentralJersey.com, will never find the right way to express their appreciation.

They can only hope the foundation’s actions speak louder than words.

Some of the ways our nonprofit has made an impact are detailed below:

• Sponsored more than 60 student-athletes from South Brunswick High School, who are donating their time and youthful energy to participate in a charity kickball tournament benefiting an inspirational township boy living with an incurable and terminal disease.
• 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 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 Teamwork Unlimited Foundation to treat Special Olympics athletes from the Raritan Bay Area YMCA to a Somerset Patriots game experience.

• Funded the purchase of brand-new metal bunk beds for campers at Kiddie Keep Well Camp, which serves more than 600 underserved Middlesex County children annually.

• Partnered with the St. 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.
• Partnered with the Kittim N. Sherrod Foundation to provide a youth football and cheerleading organization with a bilingual state-of-the art automated external defibrillator, as well as AED and cardiopulmonary resuscitation training for adult members of the organization.

• 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.

• Provided money for equipment and supplies for students with disabilities who utilize the Lakeview School’s newly constructed aquatics center.

• 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.

• Partially funded the Make-A-Wish of a Middlesex County boy who is winning a battle with high-risk neuroblastoma to vacation with his family at Walt Disney World.

• Provided physical therapy at Special Strides Therapeutic Riding Center and Project Walk for Middlesex County children whose families do not have health insurance or whose families’ health insurer does not cover the cost of the physical therapy.

• Partnered with Edison High School and the Chamberlain College of Nursing for two consecutive years to raise money and collect nonperishable food items to benefit Middlesex County children and their families through Hands of Hope via our foundation’s participation in the Race to Outrun Hunger.

• Provided new iPads and gaming system accessories (Xbox and PS4 games, controllers, chargers) for adolescent patients at Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital.

• Funded the purchase of uniforms (shirts and shorts) for campers at Kiddie Keep Well Camp, which serves more than 600 underserved Middlesex County children annually.

• Partnered with Woodbridge High School and the Central Jersey bowling community to deliver hundreds of toys to pediatric patients at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, where Marisa underwent a successful heart transplant.

• Partially funded the Make-A-Wish of a Middlesex County girl who was born with a complex cardiac defect to vacation with her family at Walt Disney World.

• Provided 13 summer art camp scholarships to Rutgers University’s Zimmerli Art Museum for Middlesex County elementary and middle school students.

• Rewarded three high school students for their community service to children with college academic scholarships.

• Provided a total of 14 college academic scholarships to Greater Middlesex Conference student-athletes whose classroom performance and extracurricular involvement reflects Marisa’s educational success and whose charitable endeavors align with our foundation’s mission.

• Sponsored a Middlesex County elementary school’s field trip to Special Strides Therapeutic Riding Center in Monroe, where students from self-contained autistic classes were afforded the opportunity to interact with horses and baby goats.

• 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.

• Made a donation in honor of Piscataway’s Conackamack Middle School, which honored Marisa during its 27th annual Turkey Trot, to the township’s FISH Hospitality Program, which provides shelter, meals, clothing and other services to homeless families in Middlesex County.

• Paid forward the generosity Bishop Ahr High School has bestowed upon our foundation with a donation to the school-community’s 21st annual Ahr Star spaghetti dinner, whose beneficiaries included a 9-year-old boy from Middlesex County with multiple disabilities.

• 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.

• Provided gift cards for pediatric patients and their families.