North Main basketball game teaches valuable lessons in helping others

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North Main basketball game teaches valuable lessons in helping others
By Nancy Kriz

Clockwise and from the left: North Main fifth grader Franklin Schumacher; second grade teacher Cynthia Spina; Principal Matthew Kravatz; Joseph Pesce, physical education teacher; and Alaina Neubauer, a fifth grade student, talk about the upcoming North Main Elementary School faculty basketball game to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital on Friday, Nov. 14. Photo by Nancy Kriz.

MONROE - An upcoming basketball game between the faculty at North Main Elementary School is a reaffirmation of how not just a school community - but the larger community as a whole - can unite together to assist children who are sick and need help.

Sure, there’s the friendly competitiveness between members of the school’s “Red” and “Blue” teams and their cheering supporters as well as the important lessons in sportsmanship and being both a gracious winner and good loser. But those are secondary to the game’s main purpose of helping sick children at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

The second annual benefit basketball game will take place Friday, Nov. 14, at 6:30 p.m. in the Monroe-Woodbury High School gym. Last year, more than 1,100 people attended the game, with people turned away because the gym had reached its capacity when it was held in the middle school’s gym.

The game raised $6,500 for St. Jude.



This year, organizers believe the new venue will allow even more people to participate and raise even more money for St. Jude, considered to be one of the world’s premier pediatric cancer research centers. Its mission is to find cures for children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases through research and treatment.

“What this stands for is helping kids in need,” said basketball team member Joseph Pesce, one of North Main’s physical education teachers. “It shows that our staff is united and strong and we’re doing something for the greater good. For the kids to see their teachers - their role models - do something for other people. This is what teachers do every day.”

“It (the game) teaches the students about teamwork and that it’s not all about winning,” added Cynthia Spina, a North Main second grade teacher who will be playing that night.
The North Main basketball game is being played in memory of Chester resident Christopher DePaulis, a third grade student who died last year of leukemia.

Helping others

North Main’s affiliation with St. Jude started when Matthew Kravatz, then North Main assistant principal, brought the St. Jude “Mathathon” program into the school. The “Mathathon” was a fund-raising activity where students secured financial sponsorship for correctly answering special math problems, with St. Jude as the beneficiary.

Kravatz is a childhood cancer survivor. At age two, he was diagnosed with a type of cancer rarely seen in small children. Though he wasn’t treated at St. Jude, his parents were told their little boy would have less than a five percent chance of survival. His only hope would be an experimental drug called Cisplatin, which at the time, wasn’t approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Surgery and chemotherapy cured the young Kravatz, who, as a result, feels strongly that everyone should help others dealing with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses or diseases.

“Perhaps the disease has directly impacted you, or you know of someone who has struggled with it,” Kravatz, now the school’s principal, wrote in a recent letter to parents. “While many positive steps have been taken in the fight of this terrible disease, there are still many people, including children, who are impacted on a daily basis.”


That “Mathathon” turned into a basketball game in 2007. It took on an even greater and emotional meaning to students and faculty last year when North Main student and Chester resident Christopher DePaulis died of leukemia. The game was played in his memory and will be again this year.

“Yes, we have to have tests and assessments and other state-mandated material,” said Kravatz. “But we need to teach them some type of empathy to help others less fortunate than themselves. This is about raising money for a good cause and they (the students) ‘get it.’ They understand what it’s all about.”

The second through fifth graders at North Main are actively involved in the game’s planning, said Kravatz. They’re buying red and blue team items from the school store, with proceeds benefiting St. Jude, and even donating money from their own pockets.

Tooth Fairy money

and allowances

“If my family, or me, was sick, I would want somebody to raise money for us,” said fifth grader Alaina Neubauer of Monroe. “That way the kids at St. Jude don’t feel alone. They’re not fighting by themselves.”

As part of her own contribution to the hospital, Alaina sold some of her personal trinkets to her cousins, raising a total of $4.53.

“I didn’t price them high,” she said. “I also gave my own $5 I got from the Tooth Fairy. It’s not about the team. It’s about the money you give to St Jude.”




Monroe resident Franklin Schumacher, also a fifth grader, donated his bi-weekly allowance of $9 to the cause.

“The game is a fun way to raise money for people in need,” said Franklin.

St. Jude is providing water bottles, hats and T-shirts as prizes to be handed out during the game. A hospital spokesperson emphasized the importance of events like this.

“That’s something we’re trying to make people realize, especially in this economy,” said Jen Joy, associate director for the St. Jude Albany-area fund-raising office. “Every dollar that comes in is a dollar more than we had a day before. It helps us to run a hospital that costs $1 million a day.”




Faculty who aren’t playing on either team are helping out at the concession stands and on cheerleading squads for both teams. Ancillary staff from the custodial department and other areas are also volunteering. Kravatz will serve as coach of the “Blue Team” while Assistant Principal Delores Terlecky is the “Red Team” coach.

“We’re trying to shape their young minds and get them to think about other people,” said Kravatz. “There’s so much more than school work. This (the game) is that. This is one of those events when the parents will walk out and say, ‘This is what school is supposed to be all about.’”