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Joseph and Maddie Mastriano are finally retiring the Three Village Kids Lemonade Stand, after nine years of increasingly ambitious fund-raising events. The ninth, and very last, Lemonade Stand event will be held on Monday, August 9.
The original founders of the lemonade stand, Joseph and Maddie, have raised $122,000 for the Stony Brook Children's Hospital Child Life program, with more to come during the last lemonade stand scheduled to take place this August.
Dr. Carolyn Milana, Chair, Department of Pediatrics and Physician-in-Chief, Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, Carol Gomes, CEO of Stony Brook University Hospital, and Joan Alpers, Director Child Life Services with members of the Child Life team, met to honor the Mastrianos for their fundraising work, and to receive a check for the program.
The donations fund activities and supplies for patient and their families. In a year and a half when Stony Brook is unable to take donations in-kind, the Three Village Kids Lemonade Stand has helped Child Life to purchase everything kids need to make their hospital stay easier, and even fun.
Joan Alpers talks about the program. “The Lemonade Stand has helped us with all sorts of projects that directly support kids struggling with illness and hospitalization. They contributed to the Video Game Project, placing a PlayStation® game system in each patient room and supported a new hospital playroom.”
The event started as a small affair, organized by two preteens but quickly escalated into a local fixture. Joan Alpers has visited many times, “every event is crafted, colorful, energetic and attracts community members, kids, teens and grownups, to come out and join the giving. I know this is the last lemonade stand event, but I have a feeling this could be a ‘lemonade movement’... and inspires another set of young people to find a new way to do a good thing for their hospital and community.”
Joan Alpers gives a final thank you, “Thanks for the joy you have given to hospitalized kids and the education you have given to the community about the good work that child life specialists do. Thanks for the countless hours you put in and fun ways you did it. You made "eezy peezy" into a hospital-wide saying.”
Don’t miss the final Three Village Kids Lemonade Stand event on Monday, August 9, 2021, the event runs from 3pm to 7pm in-person at Murphy Junior High School Bus Circle, and virtually on Twitch from 7:30-9:30pm.