Different Backgrounds, Shared Goal
(07/16/2009) It is the small pleasures in life that Katy Stewart and her family, who live on North Haven, are hanging onto these days. In a journal that details the progress of her treatments at caringbridge.org,
 Stewart Family Photo
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Katy’s father, James Stewart, writes about Sag Harbor sunsets, planting marigolds in the garden, and the countless thoughtful things that friends and neighbors have done to ease the burden of his 10-year-old daughter’s struggle with hepatoblastoma, a rare liver cancer she was diagnosed with in April.
In between trips home, Katy has been bombarded with chemotherapy treatments at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center hospital in New York. “One day at a time, I thought it was a cliché until now,” said Mr. Stewart on Tuesday after returning with Katy, who had had a barrage of treatments. “Today is a good day. There are good days and not so good days, and we’re thankful that today is a good one.”
Both of Katy’s parents are educators. Her mother, Brigid Collins, is an assistant principal at the Montauk School, and Mr. Stewart coaches wrestling, soccer, and tennis at East Hampton High School, where he also teaches health. Through the tight-knit East End community, word has spread quickly about Katy’s illness.
“Certainly the first thing people say is ‘What can I do?’ and you don’t want to keep asking the parents,” said Debbie Mansir, who works at the high school.
So when Rebecca Rubenstein, a recent East Hampton graduate, overheard her father, Scott Rubenstein, talking with a nonprofit group that asked to use his tennis facility for a fund-raiser in August, she was quick to offer the suggestion that some of the proceeds from the Max Cure Foundation’s first Roar for a Cure benefit carnival be donated to the Stewarts.
The foundation was started to raise money for pediatric cancer research two years ago, shortly after Max Plotkin, a 6-year-old New York City resident who makes frequent trips to his grandfather’s beachfront house in Amagansett, was diagnosed with a rare form of B-cell lymphoma. Because of Rebecca’s suggestion, a bond has formed between two families from radically different circumstances, and the fund-raiser has gained so much momentum that it has “taken on a life of its own,” according to David Plotkin, Max’s father.
“When Jim and I met, there was an instant bond, even though there’s so much that separates us as people,” said the well-to-do investment banker, who since his son’s diagnosis has raised more than $300,000 for pediatric cancer research.
He is expecting that the Roar for a Cure benefit, which will be held on Aug. 22 at East Hampton Indoor Tennis, will be an annual event. There will be rides, kids’ activities, an all-you-can-eat barbecue, and a live performance by Push Play, a Long Island-based teen heartthrob band. Tickets cost $200 for a family of four, $100 for an adult, or $25 for kids under 18, with 25 percent of the proceeds to be donated to the Stewart family, and the rest to benefit a chemotherapy research facility. Tickets can be purchased at maxcurefoundation.org.
“This charity event just raised the bar for all fund-raisers in East Hampton,” said Mr. Plotkin. “Anybody who wants to charge an obscene amount of money and not include the community doesn’t get it — its not about who’s who. There will be people able to write the big checks, but what about the people who just want to come spend the day with their families?”
 Plotkin Family Photo
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Mr. Plotkin is an extremely energetic father who almost immediately began fund raising for a new pediatric research facility at Sloan-Kettering after his son’s diagnosis. With a web of business and social connections in New York, he is in a unique position to solicit donations from corporations and other big spenders that have included Saudi Arabian royalty. By suggesting checks instead of gifts at a friend’s birthday party, he was able to raise $40,000 in a single evening when his fund-raising bent began. In December, the Max Cure Foundation received nonprofit status, and since Max’s diagnosis, he has run marathons and even produced a music album about his experiences.
“After we digested the news, we decided we wanted to make a difference,” he said during a lunch meeting at his father’s house on Friday. “You have two choices in life, you can take a negative and hate the world, or turn it into a positive. . . . At the end of the day, there was no room for negative.”
After two years of treatment, Max’s hair has grown back and he has wrapped up what will, it is hoped, be his last treatment. In contrast, Katy is just embarking on her road to recovery, and while her family has health insurance, they will doubtless have to handle the financial burden of constant trips to the city, time lost from work, and eating out and staying in expensive hotels when the Ronald McDonald House is full — problems the Plotkins haven’t had to deal with.
But financial security didn’t make the Plotkin family’s ordeal any less devastating. “It’s not about what you have or who you know. Cancer doesn’t discriminate. It’s a reality check,” said Mr. Plotkin. That said, despite the different worlds they live in, the families quickly formed an attachment when they met to discuss the fund-raiser.
“Jim and Brigid, they are very proud people,” said Mr. Plotkin, who added that the Stewarts told him their friends were the people likely to be serving and cleaning up at these types of fund-raisers. “I told them, you’ve given to this community for years, let the community give back to you. I was certain there was just an overflow of people anxious to help,” so he told the Stewarts, “get Katy well, and we’ll handle the funding.”
Drawing on the Stewart family’s ties to local schools, “We’re going to try to mobilize the teachers and coaches and see what kinds of things they can help with,” said Ms. Mansir, who has become a point-person for teachers and coaches looking to get involved. Ralph Naglieri, another coach at East Hampton, has been assigned the task of mobilizing coaches to help solicit donations for raffles and help with the event.
“Ralph Naglieri and I are working on the teachers. Sue Nicoletti and Donna DiPaolo are doing Montauk and Springs. We’re going to pull in Bridgehampton and [Mr. Stewart’s] dad was a coach in Riverhead,” so that school district is likely to also get involved, said Ms. Mansir. “It’s really going to be one of those huge community things.”
In the meantime, Katy and her family are bravely pushing through her treatments. At the Ronald McDonald House, where the Stewarts are frequent visitors, the younger children are enamored with Katy. “Kate smiles at them and they follow her around the floor,” said Mr. Stewart, who added that staying at the facility is helpful for other reasons. “We get to talk with other parents who are in our shoes, and there is a certain empathy,” similar to that he experiences in his conversations with Mr. Plotkin. “It we had met on the street, maybe we would nod and smile, perhaps, but we would never have the understanding we have now.”