Ben Franklin Student to Lead Children’s Hospital Walk
A third grader at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Shrub Oak has been named grand marshal of the April 21, 2013 Go the Distance Walk and Family Fun Day fundraising event for Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center.
A special ceremony for Jaime Ferretti, 8, of Mahopac, who had a lifesaving pediatric neurosurgical procedure at the hospital in January 2012, was held last week at the school in front of teachers, administrators and more than 100 fellow third graders.
Ferretti was rushed to the hospital for emergency neurosurgery in order to remove a malignant tumor that was causing her brain to swell to life threatening levels. The delicate, complex procedure to reduce the swelling and remove the tumor took more than 14 hours to complete. The surgery was so successful that neither radiation nor chemotherapy treatments were necessary.
As the ninth annual Go the Distance grand marshal, Ferretti will lead thousands of participants around the Medical Center campus and represent thousands of local children cared by the hospital annually for acute illness and injury.
Prior to the opening of the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital, Benjamin Franklin Elementary School held a “Reach for the Stars Read-a-Thon” fundraiser over the course of the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 school years that raised $100,000 for the hospital and its children’s programs. A plaque commemorating that effort adorns a wall in the hospital’s Family Resource Center.
In addition, a large mosaic created by students of the Lakeland School District school with the inscription “You Can Make a Difference” is located outside of the children’s hospital’s pediatric emergency room. A sister mural greets visitors in Benjamin Franklin Elementary School’s main lobby.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
