Message To Cancer Patients: ‘No One Fights Alone’

Commack Director of Athletics Pat Friel, Roseanne Simone, seniors on the varsity girls soccer team, and coaches Tracie Morenberg and Jack Bayer, show off blankets purchased for chemotherapy patients. The blankets read: “No one fights alone!”

By Sophia Ricco
sricco@longislandergroup.com

The Commack High School Girls Soccer program, along with the Commack High School Goal Club and the Commack Soccer League raised $6,000 to aid those with cancer.

They joined numerous schools and the Suffolk County Girls Soccer Coaches Association (S.C.G.S.C.A.) for the “Kicks for Cancer Fundraiser” that benefits cancer organizations and local families. Since 2008, Kicks For Cancer has raised more than $250,000 that has been donated to the Making Headway Foundation, American Cancer Society, Ronald McDonald House and many others. It was started by the Hauppauge Girls Soccer Program and coach Jesseca Kulesa after the team lost soccer family member Courtney Tomkin to brain cancer.

“Courtney has been and always will be an inspiration and has affected thousands of lives in so many ways both on and off the pitch and continues to do so to this very day,” the S.C.G.S.C.A. website reads.

The Commack contingent raised the second highest school total in Suffolk County with $6,000 donated. Varsity and junior varsity soccer players amassed this amount through raffles, bake sales and collecting donations at the Commack Soccer League field on weekends. CSL showed its support by selling pink soccer socks in October. The school’s Goal Club also lent a hand by organizing basket donations and concessions at the girls’ annual “Pink Games”.

As thanks, Kicks for Cancer allows the teams to choose where a portion of their raised funds will be donated. They selected a fund chosen by Commack Soccer League board member and cancer survivor Roseanne Simone.

“Roseanne’s determination was the motivation behind this community venture,” Commack coach Tracie Morenberg said. “Through the great efforts of many, the Commack High School Girls Soccer Program knows the true meaning of ‘It takes a village to pay it forward.’”

Simone’s wish was to give back to the center that helped her through her own battle with breast cancer. In January, she was able to deliver 200 blankets for chemotherapy patients at the NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center in Huntington where she was treated.