OUT OF THE CLEAR BLUE SKY

An aunt and uncle had taken Marc to a Long Island beach for a few days, but on Thursday, Terrie called and said they had better come back.

Friday night, July 30, 2004, his hospital room filled with relatives and friends, Michael died.

"It was the same time on Friday when Michael had his parties," says Terrie. "It was almost like his soul decided the time had come to leave his body."

Within days of Michael's death, two events occurred that foretold what would come next. The Magros' neighbors had been planning a blood drive on Michael's behalf, because he needed so many transfusions. They asked the family if they should go ahead and the Magros said absolutely. Well over 100 people donated blood.

Then, many in the overflow crowd that attended Michael's wake left donations and the Magros had to decide what to do with the money. They held a family meeting and considered the options. Their decision: because Michael had missed playing his X-Box video games the many times he was in the hospital, they bought two television sets on rolling carts, two X-Box consoles and a bunch of X-Box games, and then donated it all to the in-patient pediatric unit at Winthrop University Hospital in Michael's name.

"That started everything," Terrie says.

The Magros live about 20 minutes from the Cancer Center and are surrounded by a large support network of family and friends. But they had seen that many of the other parents who brought their children to the Center came from far greater distances and had no one to help out. Some of the children came from single-parent homes, or from homes where there wasn't much money or medical insurance.

In the hundreds of hours they had spent at Winthrop, the Magros had also developed a great appreciation for the Child Life specialists in the Cancer Center for Kids and the pediatric unit. These specialists are trained to help children and their families through the enormous stresses of hospitalization. They provide everything from emotional and educational support to music therapy and arts and crafts. They are not, however, considered part of the clinical staff, so none of their work, as valuable as it is, is supported by insurance.

"So we went to the hospital and said we want to set up a foundation in Michael's name but said we must have complete control of the dollars," says Terrie. "We want 100 percent of the money to go to the kids or the families or the programs run by the Child Life specialists. We don't want it routed through some other fund.

"To their enormous credit, they said they were fine with everything we asked for."

The Michael Magro Foundation was officially incorporated as a non-profit organization in January 2005. In the three years since, it has given out some $200,000--100 percent of what it has taken in--in a variety of creative ways. Their mission, Terrie told a local newspaper, the Hicksville Illustrated News, "is to look to the small gifts that can make a child or family member smile for the moment."

For example, the foundation buys gift cards to places like grocery stores, gas stations, Best Buy and Blockbuster Video. The gift cards are passed on to families by the Child Life specialists and other hospital staff, sensing what might cheer them up or help them out the most.

"People don't realize everything that happens when your child becomes seriously ill," says Terrie. "Suddenly you're taking more and more time off work. You're coming to the hospital for what you think is half an hour and it turns into eight and you didn't bring any food with you. You're driving hundreds of extra miles. You're worried about who's going to make dinner, and whether your other kids feel like they're getting pushed aside.

"Suddenly you're paying out an extra three or four hundred dollars a month for things like gas, parking and fast food, and it all comes crashing down on you at the same time. A gift card for a tank of gasoline might not seem like much, but it can make a tremendous difference."