$120G donation from E. Farmingdale marijuana dispensary for children in need of heart surgery
Rob Raylman, CEO of Gift of Left International, left, receives a contribution from Paul Lepore, president of Happy Days Dispensary, on Friday in East Farmingdale. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp
An additional 100 children in need of “lifesaving heart surgery” worldwide can be helped thanks to a nearly $120,000 donation from an East Farmingdale marijuana dispensary to Gift of Life International, officials said on Friday.
“This is an amazing effort on the part of Happy Days . . . to help us raise money for children around the world,” Gift of Life International CEO Rob Raylman said during the check presentation at Happy Days Dispensary.
“This is the largest single donation we’ve ever gotten on Long Island,” Raylman said of the dispensary’s $119,598 contribution. “As a native Long Islander, it makes me very proud to see the community come together with a business leader, such as Paul Lepore, to be able to go out there and say there’s a need for help and people respond to that.”
Gift of Life is a Rotarian-based program that provides cardiac care to children from developing countries. It also has established clinics in those countries and provided training.
The organization was “born on Long Island” 50 years ago by the Rotary Club of Manhasset, Raylman said.
Lepore, president of Happy Days Dispensary, cited an “inherent duty to give back to various charitable initiatives.”
His connection to Gift of Life began in 2014, Lepore said, when he sponsored a 2-year-old Salvadoran boy named Jaime, for heart surgery in El Salvador. The heart surgery for that boy came a day after Lepore said his older brother, Michael, died from heart failure at age 33.
“It’s almost like my brother had given away his heart for that little boy,” Lepore said.
Lepore, 41, said the contributions came during the dispensary’s celebration of “Heart Month” in February, where a portion of the proceeds from various products sold at the dispensary, in accordance with vendor agreements, were donated to Gift of Life International. He said about $59,000 was raised through the product sales, and “then we matched that,” he said of Happy Days.
The Happy Days donation will finance help for about 100 children beyond the 5,000 the organization helps annually in 80 countries, Raylman said.
Lepore said he hoped to learn about some of the children.
"We have children already identified in many different countries that are going to be helped with these funds” over the next three or four months, Raylman said. “We’ll have stories about the children, videos and pictures. One child will come to New York” to be treated at St. Francis Hospital and Heart Center in Roslyn.
Fifty years ago, the first child Gift of Life sponsored was brought for heart surgery to that hospital through a partnership between the Rotary Clubs in Manhasset and Uganda, Newsday has reported. That child was a 5-year-old girl from Uganda named Grace Agwaru.
Agwaru visited St. Francis in 2022 with Gift of Life officials.
“This is the place where my life was saved,” she said during a ceremony at the hospital, Newsday reported. “Every decision I make has been based on this,” she said of her life-sustaining surgery. She said she had been inspired to help others as a result.
An additional 100 children in need of “lifesaving heart surgery” worldwide can be helped thanks to a nearly $120,000 donation from an East Farmingdale marijuana dispensary to Gift of Life International, officials said on Friday.
“This is an amazing effort on the part of Happy Days . . . to help us raise money for children around the world,” Gift of Life International CEO Rob Raylman said during the check presentation at Happy Days Dispensary.
“This is the largest single donation we’ve ever gotten on Long Island,” Raylman said of the dispensary’s $119,598 contribution. “As a native Long Islander, it makes me very proud to see the community come together with a business leader, such as Paul Lepore, to be able to go out there and say there’s a need for help and people respond to that.”
Gift of Life is a Rotarian-based program that provides cardiac care to children from developing countries. It also has established clinics in those countries and provided training.
The organization was “born on Long Island” 50 years ago by the Rotary Club of Manhasset, Raylman said.
Lepore, president of Happy Days Dispensary, cited an “inherent duty to give back to various charitable initiatives.”
His connection to Gift of Life began in 2014, Lepore said, when he sponsored a 2-year-old Salvadoran boy named Jaime, for heart surgery in El Salvador. The heart surgery for that boy came a day after Lepore said his older brother, Michael, died from heart failure at age 33.
“It’s almost like my brother had given away his heart for that little boy,” Lepore said.
Lepore, 41, said the contributions came during the dispensary’s celebration of “Heart Month” in February, where a portion of the proceeds from various products sold at the dispensary, in accordance with vendor agreements, were donated to Gift of Life International. He said about $59,000 was raised through the product sales, and “then we matched that,” he said of Happy Days.
The Happy Days donation will finance help for about 100 children beyond the 5,000 the organization helps annually in 80 countries, Raylman said.
Lepore said he hoped to learn about some of the children.
"We have children already identified in many different countries that are going to be helped with these funds” over the next three or four months, Raylman said. “We’ll have stories about the children, videos and pictures. One child will come to New York” to be treated at St. Francis Hospital and Heart Center in Roslyn.
Fifty years ago, the first child Gift of Life sponsored was brought for heart surgery to that hospital through a partnership between the Rotary Clubs in Manhasset and Uganda, Newsday has reported. That child was a 5-year-old girl from Uganda named Grace Agwaru.
Agwaru visited St. Francis in 2022 with Gift of Life officials.
“This is the place where my life was saved,” she said during a ceremony at the hospital, Newsday reported. “Every decision I make has been based on this,” she said of her life-sustaining surgery. She said she had been inspired to help others as a result.
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