Students On Soccer Team Donate Presents To Hospitalized Children

By Jeff White

Dr Jack Fong knows that sometimes it takes one kid to make another kid happy.

The chairman of pediatrics at Danbury Hospital now has a unit more stocked with toys and games than ever, thanks to the efforts of the Newtown Strikers travel soccer team.

The 18-member team — which is comprised mostly of eighth graders, along with one seventh grader and one ninth grader — recently took part in an internal fundraiser to benefit the children in Dr Fong’s pediatric center. Each student contributed $25 of his own money to the effort, which raised nearly $600 toward the purchase of new toys.

The decision to raise money for sick and recuperating children at Danbury Hospital was an easy one, said team member Peter Ditmar, who recalls a time when he was in the hospital recovering from a head injury sustained during a sleep over. Although he was only in the hospital for three days, he understands that kids who have longer stays need things to keep their mind off the reasons why they are in the hospital in the first place.

“Since many of us have been so fortunate,” the seventh grader explained, “we wanted to give some presents and toys to kids who were not as lucky as us.”

The presents the team purchased with their pooled financial resources, in the form of board and video games, spilled onto the conference table in the office of Gerard D. Robilotti, the hospital’s vice president, late last Thursday afternoon. Among the pile of diversions were Nintendo Game Boys, a Sony Play Station, video game control pads, and popular board games like Connect Four and Candy Land.

This Strikers club is a close-knit group of students, most of whom have played with each other on this team for the past five years. Over that period, they have been one of the dominating teams of the 60 teams that make up the Newtown Soccer Club, winning their age group in the Connecticut Junior Soccer Association Championship a total of four times.

Therefore, it is not that surprising that the team approached their charitable project with the same sense of teamwork.

“[Raising the money] made us think together and help each other out, thinking of what to buy. We just worked together though the whole thing,” explained Peter Ditmar.

Since Danbury Hospital’s pediatric unit sees an annual discharge of 1,000 young patients, with the average patient staying at the hospital for three days, Dr Fong said that this donation from the Strikers was no small effort: it will have a direct impact.

“We really try to create a home away from home,” explained Dr Fong. “This will be great for [the children] so that the hospitalization does not seem like a punishment.”

As the toys made their way up to the pediatric unit on the eleventh floor, the soccer team spilled out from Mr Robiloitti’s office into the hospital’s parking lot. Their gift, by other fundraising measures, might not seem that much, but for many team members, it was a chance to show how thankful they all are for the talents and opportunities they have.

“It feels real good, to help people, to help them with the stuff they may never get, or to help them because we have chances they don’t,” confided team member Chris Wolcott.