The Lake Success-Gold Coast Rotary Club on Tuesday donated $200 to the family of a Great Neck girl who lost her left leg to swine flu, after reading about the girl’s fight with the disease in the Great Neck News.
“We saw the article and before any of us could say anything our treasurer asked how much do we want to give,” said Joel Meltzer, past president of the club.
The club donated the $200 check to the family of Sara Bezaley so that they can make the Great Neck house more handicap accessible, Meltzer said.
Her mother Tamar Bezaley said she was in a state of disbelief when the club contacted her and told her they wanted to make a donation.
“I feel very loved and very supported,” Tamar Bezaley said.
Tamar Bezaley said the Great Neck community been very supportive of her family following the publication of a May 9 Great Neck News article, detailing a fundraising campaign to help make the Bezaley’s home more handicap accessible. “Obviously our family and friends knew but the wider Great Neck community, which includes this club, has become very aware,” she said.
Meltzer said although the club wanted to give a check, they had no idea where the Bezaley family lived.
He said he was able to get the contact information for the family after meeting with Great Neck News publisher Steven Blank at a meeting of the New Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce.
“Luckily, we were able to find out where they lived,” Meltzer said.
He said the Lake Success-Gold Coast Rotary Club, which meets at the Inn at Great Neck on the first Friday of every month, also sponsors the Great Neck South High School robotics team, Westbury High School and water purification projects overseas.
Sara was 7-years old when she was first diagnosed with swine flu in November of 2009.
Following a second swine flu diagnosis in February 2013, Sara, now 13, had to undergo a heart transplant procedure and have her left leg amputated.
She now faces the challenge of getting around her Great Neck home in a wheelchair, in a house that Tamar Bezaley says is not handicap-accessible.
“She really needs some independence,” Tamar Bezaley said.
Tamar Bezaley said the family is currently seeking out a contractor to help renovate the house, in an effort to make it more handicap accessible.
The Bezaley family in May received help through a fundraising campaign put together by a group of Yeshiva University students in Manhattan using social media.
The campaign raised $42,672 on the fundraising site Indiegogo.com.
The fundraising campaign was part of a final college project for seven women to use social media to promote a cause.
The idea for the fundraising campaign came from Liran Weizman, a graduate of the Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University in Manhattan, who is a family friend of the Bezaley’s.
Weizman said she met Sara through her volunteer work at Columbia Hospital when she stayed overnight to keep Bezaley company after her heart transplant in 2013.
“They needed somebody to stay with her during the night,” Weizman said. “While I was there, I created a very strong relationship with the family.”
Weizman said her bond with the Bezaley family “allowed me to grow.”
Weizman said when she, along with Lasson and five other women were assigned to promote a social cause for their class “Social Media Driving Business Results” she thought of the Bezaley family.
“I just wanted to give back to them because they helped me grow so much,” she said.
Tamar Bezaley said she was skeptical about Weizman’s idea at first.
“My husband and I never really intended to fundraise for Sara,” she said. “We were just getting by with what we had.”
Tamar Bezaley said she allowed Weizman to go ahead with the project because of the time she spent with her daughter in the hospital.
“We really felt so deeply about Liran,” she said. “She’s always thanking us but she’s really the one helping us.”
The original goal for the project was $4,000.
Less than 24 hours after the page went up, the campaign had raised about $10,000 in funds for the Bezaley family.
Weizman said the fundraising page quickly spread over Facebook and Twitter.
“It just exploded on social media,” Weizman said. “We didn’t understand how this was happening.”
Weizman credited the Great Neck community for supporting the Bezaley family.
Tamar Bezaley said she has seen many people’s names on the fundraiser’s page that she recognized as members of the Great Neck community.
“It’s really an amazing thing,” Tamar Bezaley said. “We see how much love we’re surrounded by.”
