Everyone faces their personal trials and tribulations as they go through life, but when it happens to a child, the experience can be especially harrowing. Thankfully, a Long Island charitable organization has been tirelessly working to ensure that children in need don’t have to face the hurdles that life throws at them alone.
John Ray is the Co-Founder and Executive Board Member of KiDS NEED MoRE, a group of volunteers that selflessly works year-round to help youngsters facing life-threatening illnesses and other maladies.
KiDS NEED MoRE, based out of Amityville, NY, was first started in 2012, with Ray saying the reason for the organization's genesis was in order to save Camp Adventure, a day camp for needy kids where Ray and his wife originally met while working there as volunteers.
“Camp Adventure is a camp for kids with cancer, and it was a program that was run by the American Cancer Society. However, they eventually made the decision to not continue with the camp...they just wanted to concentrate on research,” he said. “So we approached them and said, hey, we'd like to keep this going because this means the world to the kids and their families. They look forward to it every year...it’s their social network and support group.”
In order to save Camp Adventure, Ray and his wife – along with many other volunteers – formed KiDS NEED MoRE, and after successfully achieving their goal, the organization has continued to grow and evolve over the years to offer additional services to children year-round.
KiDS NEED MoRE hosted their 24th annual Party for Life fundraiser on May 25 at the Heritage Club at the Bethpage Golf Course, where the group flew in Wojtek Debowski – a stem cell donor from Poland – who got to meet Steve Hiestand of Florida, the person whose life they saved for the first time at the event.
“We're going to bring them together…each year, we bring in a stem cell donor and their recipient to meet for the first time at the Party for Life, and it gives you chills because that's the person you owe your life to,” Ray said. “We fly them in, and we put them up near the event location, and then we give them a few days afterwards to hang out and bond.”
(L to R): Emilia Debowski, Wojtek Debowski, Steve Hiestand, Nicole Hiestand. Photo Credit: KiDS NEED MoRE
Wojtek, the Good Samaritan from Poland that the group flew in, did not speak English; however, KiDS NEED MoRE was fortunate enough to connect with Whoggga and Polonia of Long Island who were able to find a Polish family that Wojtek was able to stay with while they served as local guides and translators.
The Party for Life also serves as the organization’s main fundraiser, and Ray gives all the credit for it to its long-time organizers, MaryAnn and Dr. Joseph Mills, who emotionally presented Wojtek with the Peter Careccia Humanitarian Award, named after the son of family friends who had passed away after struggling with a spinal cord tumor.
“MaryAnn and Joseph came on board right in the beginning and helped with this fundraiser that launched KiDS NEED MoRE,” Ray said. “Without them, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible. We owe a lot to the Mills family, and they do it every year for us.”
The fundraiser helps to sustain KiDS NEED MoRE’s many programs that serve underprivileged children throughout the year; this year’s event raised over $126,000 for Camp Adventure.
In addition to Camp Adventure, the group also holds additional in-person and online day camps, as well as a very special event annually during the Christmas holiday season.
“Every year, we do something on the Sunday before Christmas called the Holiday Cheer Bus. We rent out an entire gigantic fleet of party buses, and we all dress up in crazy outfits and we go to the homes of kids with life-threatening illnesses and their siblings,” Ray said. “Our volunteers get a list of kids and what they like and then they pick out gifts for them, and then on the Sunday before Christmas we go in the party buses and deliver all the toys to the kids.”
Ray noted that not only do the kids have a blast, but the volunteers do as well.
“The beauty of it all is that the parents and the caregivers don't have to pay a dime for the holidays,” he said. “We don't just bring one or two toys, you're talking about a gigantic sack filled to the brim for every kid in the family.”
The organization also offers numerous other events, such exciting Zoom-based bingo games every Saturday as well as hosting monthly drive-in movies at Costello's Ace Hardware of Copiague.
“We started that in 2020 when COVID hit because people were going stir crazy. So we founded this event and it was popular, so we just continued doing it on the last Saturday of every month,” he said. “We have a concession stand where everything costs just $1, and the event is open to the entire community. It's a nice way to get out of the house, a nice family-oriented thing.”
Ray noted that his family has been touched by the scourge of illness as well, giving them a feeling of empathy for the children they're helping; early in KiDS NEED MoRE’s existence, Ray's wife was diagnosed with leukemia, and after a stem cell transplant and a long and arduous recovery, she thankfully managed to pull through.
“Once my wife got sick, it gave us a better understanding of what the families we serve are going through,” he said. “It gave us more insight and appreciation and gratitude. It actually enhanced our lives in a lot of ways.”
Ray said that it's a wonderful feeling to have started an organization like KiDS NEED MoRE that has touched so many lives, giving children facing some of the most difficult challenges imaginable a sense of peace, joy, and fun in order to help them live life to the fullest.
“It feels great. You're only in this world for a certain amount of time, you might as well do something good with it while you are here,” he said. “It's not all just about collecting things and then you die, it's bringing joy and bringing people together and doing the right thing while you still can.”
To find out more about KiDS NEED MoRE, please visit their website at https://kidsneedmore.org.