‘During the summer going into seventh grade, I was lucky enough to be picked to be the SNY Kidcaster for that year.’

John Gadamowitz, Greenlawn

“I had the same childhood dream as a lot of kids: You grow up wanting to be the next Major League Baseball superstar or NFL quarterback. But for me, it became clear pretty early on that wasn’t going to be the case for me after I was cut from my middle school baseball team. But aside from my interest in playing sports, I also always had an interest in watching sports and listening to the announcers. I grew up a big Met fan, tuning in to Gary [Cohen], Keith [Hernandez] and Ron [Darling], and they were synonymous with baseball for me. Sometimes as a kid I would throw a game on mute and do my best Gary impression.

“Then, during the summer going into seventh grade, I was lucky enough to be picked to be the SNY Kidcaster for that year [a contest in which a winning youngster gets to call a half-inning of a Mets game with Gary, Keith and Ron]. I entered the contest by submitting an essay about why I’d be a good pick to be the next Kidcaster, and I was picked as a finalist with about 10 other kids. We were brought into the SNY studios, where we talked up some Mets highlights and did mock calls in front of a panel of judges. A couple of weeks later, I was chosen as the Kidcaster.

“When I went on with Gary, Keith and Ron, it was awesome. People always think I’d have been so nervous, but the crazy thing was, I wasn’t leading up to it. I would say it was only about 20 minutes before I went into the booth, that’s when the nerves started to hit me. The experience itself was great. I have nothing but good things to say about Gary, Keith and Ron. They were super welcoming and made me feel comfortable right from the jump. It was everything I could have imagined. I was only 12 at the time, so I wasn’t thinking it was a career move of some kind, but it did put the idea of sportscasting on my radar.

“My high school was Harborfields High School, which has a top-notch journalism program, and they stream their sports games out over the Internet. When I got there, I was invited to join the journalism team after they had gotten wind I was a Kidcaster, which then got me four years of calling games at the high school level.”

As it worked out, I got to work with one team pretty much in my backyard: the Brooklyn Cyclones.

“When it came time for college, I knew what I was looking for when it came time for me to look at schools. The question came down to, ‘Do they have the broadcasting program, and do they have a student radio station?’ and that narrowed my search. I ended up at Syracuse [University] and got to do some great things there. I didn’t cover much baseball, as it doesn’t have a baseball team, but it’s an awesome school for broadcasting. I got to anchor ‘SportsCenter’-style highlights shows of Syracuse sports and cover its other sports teams. Also, the ESPN+ TV network uses student broadcasters sometimes, so I got to call games on there as well. I also worked as an intern covering minor league hockey. My experience at Syracuse was incredible, and I was a May 2023 grad. Outside of school, I also spent my 2021 and 2022 summers in Cape Cod with the Cape Cod Baseball League, which is one of the more renowned collegiate summer leagues. I did play-by-play for one of the teams, the Brewster Whitecaps, so when it finally came time to start thinking about a job, it was pretty clear to me I wanted to go down a play-by-play path.

“Baseball is my favorite sport, so I sent out my stuff to a bunch of minor league teams, and as the business requires, I was ready to go up and anywhere for an opportunity. But, as it worked out, I got to work with one team pretty much in my backyard: the Brooklyn Cyclones [a minor league team for the Mets]. I sent the Cyclones my resume, reel and cover letter, and after having a chat with them, I ended up getting a job with the team. I’m pretty sure it was my resume and collegiate experience they liked, and I can’t say for sure my being a Mets fan helped at all, and while being a Kidcaster was an amazing opportunity, it wasn’t very high on the list of necessary qualifications; it was more about what I’ve done more recently. I’m now a few months in, and I’m calling home games, plus I help out with media relations stuff. It’s great. It’s a lot of fun. It’s the Mets, and I’m still able to live at home where I grew up and see my family and friends. The organization is incredible, and I work with awesome people. It’s everything I could have hoped for and then some.”

Interviewed by Ian J. Stark

‘As strong as I was for my three little girls at the time, inside I was breaking.’

Margaret Staib, Greenlawn

“Seventeen years ago, I found a small bald spot at the nape of my neck. Then another one developed right near it and merged into one softball-sized bald spot. My hair was falling out slowly like tinsel.

“After a dermatologist diagnosed it as alopecia, I dove into research. My sister-in-law had recently gone through breast cancer, and what was really supportive to her was a breast cancer support group.

“After years of getting steroid shots, experimental treatments and going back and forth to the city, I finally said enough: It’s an autoimmune disease, and presently there is no cure. I decided to stop the medical route because nothing was working and went for the emotional support route. I asked my dermatologist why there wasn’t a support group here on Long Island. He said, ‘You have to have a medical advisor in order to start one, so if you would like me to be your medical advisor, I’ll support you, and you could start one.’

I knew if I was breaking, there were other people on Long Island who were breaking. So, I started the group, and wow, what a difference.

“Alopecia can happen sometimes when a tragic life event triggers your immune system. My dad had been in the hospital for a month, and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. He couldn’t take it anymore, and he ripped his own trach tube on New Year’s Day and died.

“February is when I found my first spot. I craved to be around other people who understood what I was going through. As strong as I was for my three little girls at the time, inside I was breaking. I knew if I was breaking, there were other people on Long Island who were breaking. So, I started the group, and wow, what a difference. It’s like anything that you’re going through in life, and you meet somebody else who can commiserate; it’s life changing.

“All these people found out about the group through word of mouth. Two of the girls who started in the group as teenagers are now married, and one has a baby. The group is free, and we meet in a small room at Harborfields library in Greenlawn.

“What still gets me is, there are so many dermatologists on Long Island who treat alopecia and don’t tell anybody about the support group. I’ve only ever had one person referred by a doctor’s office. She was crying and the nurse came up and whispered to her, ‘There’s this support group on Long Island.’ That’s how she found me.”

Interviewed by Hannah Fusaro

‘My parents were told I would be in a vegetative state for the rest of my life. I never gave up.’

Greenlawn

“When I was 11 years old, I got hit by a car and died on the spot. I had a garden that summer, and so I was bringing my grandparents some tomatoes after school. On my way, I stopped to talk to some friends on the side of the street. A car was speeding and hit me. There were 20-foot streaks in the road. An ambulance came and resuscitated me. I was brought to the hospital. I wasn’t conscious. They drilled a hole in my head to drain the blood and relieve pressure.

“I was in a coma for four months. Nobody expected me to come out of the coma, and if I did come out of it, my parents were told I would be in a vegetative state for the rest of my life. I proved them wrong. I never gave up. I was in therapy after, and I had to learn how to walk and talk again. I had to learn how to do everything again. I was comatose. After I got the physical and occupational therapy to walk again, I needed to go to another rehab to learn cognitive skills, like how to talk and make conversations. After that, I went to school for people with disabilities. I didn’t have a good experience at that school. My brain was still dealing with a lot, and I would have these behaviors that I couldn’t control. I didn’t know how to handle certain situations, and they would just restrain me. I came home with bruises on my legs and back from being restrained as a way to calm down. They dragged me by my arms down a flight of stairs.

“Some people’s parents are controlling, but mine have been so supportive and amazing. They want me to live the life I want to live. I am so thankful for their guidance and for never restricting me from doing things that I am allowed to do. They have been there for me through it all. I have a great support system. My friends, mentors, and the people who run the organization I’m with now have been so great and supportive as well.”

I advocate for people with disabilities, like me.

“A lot of programs and schools for people with disabilities couldn’t handle what I needed; I also had diabetes. A few years later, when I was 15, I went to a brain injury school in Massachusetts and lived in a residential group home. It wasn’t a good experience. I was underweight at only 89 pounds. I left when I was 19 and came back to Long Island. I moved into a group home and then to an intermediate care facility. It’s the best option for me because they have around-the-clock nursing. I have epilepsy, which developed over time from the brain injury. I had the seizures under control for a while, but then the medication dosage wasn’t enough. It was difficult to manage, but in 2011, I got an implant in my chest called a vagus nerve stimulator. It’s a wire in my chest that’s tied to my vagus nerve. It’s connected to the cerebellum in my brain, which is where most of the seizures come from, and it goes off every three minutes to stop a seizure. I still have breakthrough seizures, which are caused by stress, but now they are only once or twice a month, compared to having them about five times a day like I used to.

“I’ve been in my current group home since 2016, and the staff is great. It’s run by AHRC Nassau, and I am in Citizens Options Unlimited. I have a paid job within AHRC Nassau as a training assistant. I also volunteer with the agency. I advocate for people with disabilities, like me. I take advantage of the fact that I have one. I can walk in their shoes. I know the experiences they go through. There are some people who can’t advocate for themselves. They can’t talk or express how they feel. They can’t stick up for themselves. I want to help the people who need it most. It’s a group of us who advocate for them. We have weekly meetings on how to advocate for yourself. I also volunteer in other places like food pantries. When I’m not advocating or volunteering, I knit and crochet in my downtime. I sell what I make, such as hats, scarves, teddy bears, and I’m beginning to sew pillows. I donate a large majority of the money to juvenile diabetes research. I’ve been doing this for over 10 years and, so far, I’ve donated close to $15,000.”

It’s nerve-racking to rely on others, especially when you’re capable and just need a bit of support.

“I used to go up to Albany with the Self-Advocacy Association of New York State to talk to the legislators and senators about making new laws. Since SANYS is across the state, they are low on staff, or they’re sometimes called direct support professionals. One of our ideas is to raise their pay. We want the staff helping us to be paid well. They do so much for us. We need them. They make sure we take our medications. They cook for us, they bathe and feed some people. They even physically move some people every half hour into different positions.

“My agency supports over 2,000, maybe even 3,000 people with disabilities. I want to be treated equally, and I want people with disabilities to be treated equally. We don’t get treated equally. We have a big label on our heads, and it isn’t fair. We get treated with respect within my agency, but there are some agencies out there where people with disabilities don’t get treated right. I have the option that if I wanted to, I could move out and get something called self direction. It’s funded through Medicaid, but the funding could run out after a few years, so I’m afraid to use it early on. Some of my friends had to opt out of it because their funding ran out. Also, in an agency, you always have a backup to the backup. There’s a pool of substitute staff that each group home gets.

“With self direction, if someone has an emergency, there is a backup step called paid neighbor, but if that person doesn’t get to you in time, then there’s nobody else to help. I am very capable, but I need help with my medications. I tried self direction once on my own, and I know I can so I could get self direction if I wanted to, but it’s a lot of responsibility. I would be nervous that I would mess it up, and it’s a lot to carry on my shoulders. If I get nervous or make a mistake, my heart rate and anxiety will spike, causing a breakthrough seizure.

“It’s nerve-racking to rely on others, especially when you’re capable and just need a bit of support. That’s something people with disabilities have to deal with – always relying on others. I would like to be a spokesperson or present at conferences regarding advocacy for people with disabilities. That’s a dream of mine. That’s where I want to be headed.”

Interviewed by Melanie Gulbas

‘I said to myself, “There are more Pilars out there, and they need help. This is my time to change the lives of others.”’

Greenlawn

“I was born in Peru. My grandparents were farmworkers who migrated to the capital of Peru, to Lima, and once there, the only jobs they could find were cleaning and working in houses and as babysitters, just like immigrants here. My parents were the first generation to obtain college degrees. My father was a dentist, and my mom was a college math professor. Growing up in Lima, I was placed in private schools, but I felt that my parents were ashamed that they had succeeded while others around them didn’t have the same opportunities. My parents made room at our table for the workers at our home, and we all ate together. They always told us, the higher you go, the harder the fall. They’d say, ‘This is where we are now. We don’t know where we are going to be later on.’

“Then, during the terrorism of the Shining Path, they lost everything. In 1989, I was 18 and in business college, and my parents felt I’d be better off moving to New York. I was determined to continue my education. Coming from an underdeveloped country, we always talked about the basic human needs: shelter, food and clothing, which my aunt and uncle graciously provided. Everything else I had to do on my own. There were times that I didn’t even have a dollar to buy a token to get on the train to go to school. I started cleaning apartments and babysitting on the Upper West Side. There were many nights when I’d babysit in the building with balconies overlooking the entrance to Tavern on the Green. I would look at people going in and out of that beautiful place and wonder how someone gets there.

“I graduated from LaGuardia Community College and started moving up in a financial corporation in Manhattan. I was invited to the Christmas party, and we rode there in a town car. We ended up going to Tavern on the Green. I looked up to see that apartment balcony I had once stood on, and then I looked at my palms that had been ruined all those years as a cleaning lady. I thought my palms were beautiful. That was the day that I could say I made it, after such a hard and painful process, and I said to myself, ‘There are more Pilars out there and they need help. This is my time to change the lives of others.’

‘It was hard to understand how these people could judge me because of the color of my skin rather than my character. I found out later my neighbors had started a patrol to watch out for us.’

“There were many immigrants just like me, and we were all experiencing similar things. I had a degree in finance, but it was difficult to move up the ladder on Wall Street because I was an immigrant woman with an accent. I ended up at a law firm for 15 years. When I became pregnant in 1992, I wanted to raise my child in the Half Hollow Hills School District, so my husband and I moved to Dix Hills. We got hate mail that we didn’t belong here, threatening to burn down our house and kill me if we didn’t move out. I had experienced professional biases, but not a degree of hate like that. It was hard to understand how these people could judge me because of the color of my skin rather than my character. I found out later my neighbors had started a patrol to watch out for us. Another turning point was when my son experienced a racist teacher. I started working with a group of other immigrant mothers to help their children successfully navigate the school system, with the aim of future success.

“During the 2008-09 recession, I started volunteering with the Family Service League, leading their financial counseling. We saw so many clients who had been doing so well who had now lost their jobs. Just like my parents, I was seeing again how you can go from having it all to having nothing. There were no classes to teach foreclosure prevention. I was asked to work for Housing Help, which desperately needed a bilingual foreclosure prevention counselor at the peak of the foreclosure crisis. I worked part time at Family Service League and part time at Housing Help, and I loved it. That’s when I started meeting with Latino homeowners, many of whom were victims of predatory lending. I realized that I needed to work with immigrants to provide more financial literacy, and that became my passion.

“I’ve been the executive director of Housing Help since 2017. Financial literacy means a family can be able to purchase their own home, changing the lives of their children. It’s important to share that with them because it’s not just about buying a house; it’s about helping the children so that they can do better to get out of the cycle of poverty.”

Interviewed by Liza Burby

‘I can be at peace with myself and be comfortable in my skin.’

Greenlawn

“I was a chubby kid and gained weight after my daughter was born. It was never a problem for me until a year after my son was born. I’d gained so much weight that a pizza delivery guy asked me when I was going to have the baby.

“I had a gastric bypass on April 7, 2004. That day I had trouble fitting into a women’s size 28. It was a defining moment; I broke down crying. Within 18 months I dropped 245 pounds to 120 and wore a size zero. It was too much to lose for my 5-foot, 4-inches. I eventually settled between 135-140 and a size four. But I had all this loose skin, so I decided to take a yoga class at Inner Spirit Yoga Center with the attitude that I didn’t die, so I guess I’ll go back. I started squeezing it in on weekends. Then I just really started to like it. I rearranged my schedule so I could take a class daily. It made me feel in a good place and everything was toning up.

In 2007, the economy was changing so I was laying people off and telling them why they couldn’t get raises. I stopped feeling like I was helping them. That’s very difficult when you’re on a spiritual, holistic journey with yoga.

“At the time I was also a corporate human resources director. In 2007, the economy was changing so I was laying people off and telling them why they couldn’t get raises. I stopped feeling like I was helping them. That’s very difficult when you’re on a spiritual, holistic journey with yoga. It just kept eating away at me. I decided to get a yoga certification, then started teaching. Soon I was teaching 22 classes, seven days a week and I’ve been doing that for 10 years. In 2010 I left the corporate world and immersed myself in the world of yoga.

“To teach during the pandemic I took a 300-hour yoga teacher training online with My Vinyasa Practice. I had to record 20 videos of me teaching. The day after I got my certification, they called to say they had watched my videos and wanted me to mentor their students. What started as just a few hours a week evolved into a rapidly growing platform where I was honored with the roles of lead teacher trainer manager to people all over the world—and HR director.

“What’s different about this merger of HR and yoga is that I get to blend both worlds, helping people and watching them grow. It’s a beautiful feeling that’s not just physical for me; it’s also calming and cleansing. I can be at peace with myself and be comfortable in my skin.

‘It changes you watching your own child die but also watching other families suffer from the disease of childhood cancer.’

Greenlawn

“Maggie didn’t want to be known as the girl with cancer. It’s odd she got struck by this. We wonder how and why all the time. She was 16 when she was diagnosed. She was a really healthy young girl. She never really got sick. She loved life; she was a go-getter. She was in the prime of what was to be a beautiful life. One day in August, she texted me saying she didn’t feel well. I took her to the hospital and as every hour passed, she would get paler. She was bleeding internally the entire afternoon into the evening. They thought it was a cyst that had hemorrhaged. But they missed the cancer on the slides. What they thought was a cyst on her ovary was a tumor. In October, she felt pain again in the same area. The ultrasound tech said they found a hematoma on the same ovary that had been operated on and that we had to have it drained. But it wasn’t a hematoma. The tumor burst again and Maggie almost bled to death for the second time. They had to do a major surgery and removed her right ovary and pieces of her colon. They didn’t tell us right then and there it was cancer, but they did tell us they saw a mass. They told us it was stage 4 small cell carcinoma of the ovaries and there was nothing they could do. We sought opinions from different hospitals and Memorial Sloan Kettering said they would take her and try chemo and surgery, followed by radiation. But she never made it that far. The chemo didn’t work. It was seven months from diagnosis to the time she died. There’s no telling if Maggie’s outcome would have been different if it would have been diagnosed in August, as opposed to October, but I’ll always wonder. Could she have been saved? There’s no easy way to say goodbye to your child. It was hard watching a beautiful teenager who had everything going for her waste away before our eyes and to be in as much pain as she was in. She knew about all the things I had done in my life: traveling, hang gliding, scuba diving. She knew about all that and the one haunting sentence she said to me before she died was, ‘Mom, it’s not fair you got to do so much in your life.’”

“We found the bucket list in a sketchbook after she died. Since she passed, family vacations were very different for us. We had routines and places we would go every year; those felt hollow without her. We decided to do a road trip in honor of her, to honor her bucket list. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were one of Maggie’s favorite bands and they were awesome to her. She met them while she was in treatment. Two of the band members were playing a concert in Big Sky, Montana, so that was our destination. We took Maggie’s ashes with us so we felt like she was with us. We found a lot of serendipitous things happened along the way. We felt like there were little signs from her. We happened across a town where the show “Northern Exposure” was filmed and there was a character from that show named Maggie; we had named her after that character in the show. We found the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of “Little House on the Prairie,” and that was a series Maggie loved. We ended up going past our original destination of Big Sky and made it all the way to the Oregon Coast, where we let go of some of her ashes. That trip felt beautiful. For my husband and I, it brought us closer.”

Look what we all did when we put ourselves in the fight to find a vaccine for COVID. It happened quickly. Imagine seeing that happen for kids.

“Maggie loved children so to go to Memorial Sloan Kettering and see these children suffering was hard on all of us. That’s what spurred her into action by asking us to help save other kids. We were a fully legal nonprofit by September of 2017. This is what we do now. Pediatric cancers receive very little in the way of funding for cures. We have worked really hard to fund research, specifically to the type of cancer that took Maggie’s life, that typically takes babies and toddlers. I feel like before she got sick and died, I tried not to think about death. I didn’t want to think about it. But now I see it a lot because we run the foundation. We get close to families and we’ve seen a lot of children lost to cancer. It changes you. It changes you watching your own child die but also watching other families suffer from the disease of childhood cancer. It takes an innocence away and a magic away that life used to hold. Doing the foundation lifts us up. We get microdonations from little kids. I have letters from children reading Maggie’s story online. Knowing she’s not forgotten and that she’s touched people even though she’s not here, these are the things that keep us going and lift our spirits. We are fully geared toward finding cures for pediatric cancers. Look what we all did when we put ourselves in the fight to find a vaccine for COVID. It happened quickly. Imagine seeing that happen for kids. It’s rewarding knowing we’re funding research and able to honor her memory in this way. Carrying on her legacy is rewarding. But I miss Maggie. I miss her a lot.”

Interviewed by Betsy Abraham