Northport students raise $1M for ALS researchBY CAROL POLSKY | carol.polsky@newsday.com
9:12 AM EST, January 10, 2009

Students gather up raffle tickets in the days leading up the Thursday night's gala. (Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara)



Sometimes charity begins at home, or at least that's what Stony Brook University Medical Center officials figured when they learned of a Northport High School group's fundraising to support research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Two of the district's teachers have the debilitating disease, and they have inspired dozens of students to raise funds, lobby politicians, visit patients and conduct summer internships and research - even after graduating from high school.

Since 2005, the school's National Honor Society project, called A Midwinter Night's Dream, has distributed about $722,000 to researchers from New York City to Atlanta. Its latest gala, this past Thursday at the Oheka Castle in Huntington, brought the group's fundraising total to $1 million.

When the medical center learned of the project, it made a proposal: Use the funds for a research laboratory here on Long Island.



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Scenes from the party "When I approached them, I said, 'Hey, we're right in your own backyard,' " said Rachael Schnabl, the medical center's development officer. "What a great relationship, to keep the funds on Long Island, with researchers doing research on Long Island."

The student group agreed, and over the next few years $125,000 of the funds they raise will go to support a planned cryopreservation laboratory at the medical center, where researchers will preserve tissue for the study of ALS and other diseases. Northport students will have the opportunity to have internships and do summer research projects at the lab.

Pending university approval, the lab will be named for the Midwinter Night's Dream project.

Brittany Pagnotta, a 16-year-old junior on the committee who, like other volunteers, spent many hours before and during the holiday break helping with the gala preparations, said, "When we heard, we got really excited. . . . The research is what we raise money for, and to have something in our own name is very special."

Don Strasser, a science teacher who is the school's National Honor Society adviser, said the intention is to help buy equipment for the new lab and pay annual costs. He said a formal agreement is weeks away.

"We'd be able to continue to fund all the other research centers we already fund," he said, noting that more money has been raised each year. "Last year we raised $250,000. This year, we're looking to raise $278,000. That would get us to $1 million."

Students must apply to join the fundraising committee, and they are selected based on an interview and essay. Members devote considerable time and effort not only to fundraising, but also to visiting ALS patients, lobbying in Washington, D.C., and raising awareness.

"You need to be really passionate about it, put your time into it, and really make a difference," Pagnotta said. "I've learned so much, and I've never tried so hard for something. You're always on top of your game, you're always thinking, and trying harder. We really do encourage each other. We're really close."

The heartfelt mission was launched after science teacher David Deutsch announced to his high school classes in 2004 that he'd been diagnosed with ALS.

Some of his students had also been pupils of elementary school teacher Chris Pendergast, when he announced his ALS diagnosis in 1993.

In fact, Pendergast, a 15-year-survivor of the disease, is a common denominator at Northport High School and at Stony Brook, where he and his fundraising organization, Ride for Life, are a force in the creation there of a clinical treatment center for ALS, said university spokeswoman Lauren Sheprow, who noted the clinic is close to national accreditation by the ALS Association.

A few days before Thursday's gala, the high school science wing was full of students and recent graduates putting together lists of raffles, making signs, party favors and seating arrangements, and handing out assignments to student drivers to pick up food donated by 46 participating restaurants, food that the students would serve to the gala guests.

"It gets easier to do every year as we learn what to do," said Erin Stabile, 19, a sophomore at Boston College who is still active on the committee. "You learn as you go, especially with so many returning members."

Another returning graduate is Chris Lynch, 22, a St. Joseph's College senior majoring in elementary education. Pendergast was his third-grade teacher. Lynch was on the original committee in 2005 when the fundraising idea was to simply organize a basketball tournament.

"It's incredible to see how far we've come," he said. "I would never have believed that in five years we'd be opening up our own research facility.

"It's incredible to be on the forefront of finding a cure for this disease and fighting against it."

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