Maimonides kids benefit raises $200k, honors five for contributions to hospital’s mission

December 12, 2023 Wayne Daren Schneiderman

Award winners showing off their accolades. Photos by Wayne Daren Schneiderman

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The kids are all right.

Maimonides held its eighth annual Community for Kids Benefit in support of its pediatric trauma center on Thursday at the El Caribe Country Club, raising upwards of $200,000 in the process as compared to 170,000 in 2022.

“That makes more than a million dollars we’ve raised over the past eight years,” Frank Naccarato, co-chair of Community for Kids and board member/trustee of Maimonides Medical Center, told the Brooklyn Eagle. He added that ever since the trauma center was built in 2016, “thousands of children’s lives were saved.”

“The number one killer of kids up until the age of 18 is trauma,” said Dr. John Marshall, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at Maimonides, pointing out that the most important thing that can be done as a community is to make sure that children have access to trauma care quickly. “Kids are the future of our borough — the future of the world,” Marshall noted.

Maimonides is home to Brooklyn’s only center for pediatric trauma care and its only comprehensive children’s hospital.

Attendees at the gala included Maimonides Health leadership; Maimonides Children’s Hospital clinical leaders and team members; community organization partners, and donors.

In addition, several honorees were celebrated for contributions to the hospital’s mission. They included Hon. Patricia DiMango, who serves as one of three judges on Amazon Freevee’s “Tribunal Justice,” created by Judge Judy Sheindlin, and most recently was a judge on the Emmy-nominated series, “Hot Bench;” Joe Causi, one of New York’s legendary disc jockeys; Erminia Rivera, who currently serves as vice chair of the Board of Trustees at Maimonides; Stephen Ferdinando, president of Richmond Plumbing and Heating Co. Inc.; and Joshua Aglio, Maimonides vice president, facilities + support services, engineering.

“This event brings the community together and develops a certain sense of awareness about what we have here in Brooklyn,” Naccarato explained. “If, God forbid, something does happen to a child, they don’t have to travel outside of Brooklyn to get help; everything is right here in our backyard.”

Naccarato also noted that within one year, Maimonides will have completed construction on a new pediatric emergency room on its main campus at 10th Avenue and 49th Street. This will be Brooklyn’s first free-standing children’s emergency facility.

“I also wanted to point out that all funds raised in the past eight years will go toward naming the lobby of the children’s hospital (Community for Kids) after the annual event,” Naccarato said. “And all future fundraising at the Community for Kids annual event will continue to go toward the pediatric trauma center.”

Maimonides Health is Brooklyn’s largest health care system, serving over 350,000 patients each year through the system’s three hospitals, 2,000 plus physicians, and more than 80 community-based practices and outpatient centers.