During the 2014 Team Up 4 Community Holiday Heroes Challenge, the W20 Foundation and its partner NBTY Helping Hands awarded a $3,000 Grant to Syosset High School’s Interact Club.
Syosset High School Interact Club and student athletes pledged to raise $35,000 to fund the life-saving heart surgeries of 7 kids from 7 continents in 7 days.
On May 15th 2015 the students were able to see their dream come to reality.
The Interact Club welcomed Rina, a 9-year-old girl from Kosovo, at the airport and helped her get settled into the Ronald McDonald House.
They had a huge ceremony for her at school on the 18th of May. The Syosset School community introduced Rina and her mother, along with Kosovo’s UN representative at the 50-yard line during a ceremony kicking off the day of the first surgery in El Salvador and Israel.
The co-Presidents, and student athletes of the club, were able to scrub in and watch Rina’s PDA surgery at St. Francis Hospital on the 20th of May.
The surgeries ended a week later with a little Syrian boy named, Anas, getting his heart surgery at the Vatican.
You can see all the children and their short biographies on the clubs website: www.syosset7in7.com
Mrs. Carisa Steinberg, the clubs advisor stated: ‘Our fundraising was amazing this spring and we are so grateful to Team Up 4 Community and NBTY Helping Hands for giving us a great start. Thank you!’
