About The Fund

The events of 9/11 were staggering and left our family reeling with grief and disbelief. Our son and brother was gone. Nick's brother Pete, during the weeks just following 9/11 contacted Port Richmond High School, Nick's Alma Mater and started the ball rolling to establish a fund in Nick's name, in an endeavor to make sure that Nick would never be forgotten.

When Pete conferred with the Athletic Department at Port Richmond HS, they came up with the criteria to be used to choose the recipient of Nick's scholarship award each year. They decided:

1. Two students would receive the award each year, a male and a female athlete.
2. They would have had to face great adversity in their young lives, overcoming it and going on to achieve.
3. They would have had to apply and been accepted to an accredited college.
4. Each student would receive $ 1,000.00 which would be paid directly to the
   college's Bursars Office in the student's name.

Our Goal
To raise enough money so in the future we would be able to give larger awards to more deserving students.

But for now, we are ecstatic that we are able to do this in Nick's memory.

OUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE ING NYC MARATHON

Upon the fund’s inception it's just amazing to think about our meager beginnings in 2001 when we depended mostly on word of mouth donations, from receiving big time help from The New York Stock Exchange to Nick's brother Chris pulling together our first, but informal fundraising project. Chris and a few friends ran the NYC Marathon in 2005 honoring Nick's memory. Between the three of them they raised $ 7,000.00. Chris mentioned that there were charities involved with the Marathon. On a whim we called the offices of the ING NYC Marathon asking if we could also be involved. It just so happened that they were establishing the Charity Partners Program, a program that would be implemented in the 2006 race. They took our fund information and two weeks later we received a letter in the mail that we were accepted. We had ten (10) runners. That was the beginning of a wonderful involvement. In 2007 and 2008 we had 20 runners and this year, 2009, we have 30. We are so grateful for this opportunity. Raising money in this way has allowed us to raise the amount of our awards and at the Awards Assembly to be held on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 we will be giving out four awards of $ 2,500.00 each. I would say that we are accomplishing our mission, we are keeping Nick’s memory alive and we are continuing his legacy of helping others to all of you we are grateful.