NEW YORK -- Members of the Yankees had a great time Wednesday afternoon at The DugOut BX Sports Bar, located across the street from Yankee Stadium.
Pizza, juice and soda were served, while the Yankees enjoyed doing karaoke with the kids in attendance. There was manager Aaron Boone singing Miley Cyrus' “Party in the USA.” General manager Brian Cashman tried his best with Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind,” while Oswaldo Cabrera did his rendition of “Shake It Off,” one of Taylor Swift's biggest hits.
The Yankees went to the bar because it was the third day of HOPE Week. The event saw the team honor Ed and Sue Goldstein and their nonprofit organization, The Valerie Fund, which provides comprehensive medical and emotional care to children with cancer and blood disorders.
"It’s great to be part of something in the community. This is an important week for us as an organization where we are giving back to people doing great things in their communities,” Boone said.
The Goldsteins have been helping children for almost 50 years, and the Yankees awarded them with a donation of $10,000, which pleasantly surprised the couple.
"The kids are the ones who are being honored because it’s their day,” Sue Goldstein said. “It’s wonderful to help children. We’ve done the best that we could.”
"We have nothing but gratitude to the Yankees," added Ed Goldstein. "They are doing so much for us, then they surprised us with a monetary gift to The Valerie Fund. We were shocked.”
It was a tragedy in the Goldsteins’ lives that made them decide to help children. Their daughter Valerie spent most of her life battling bone cancer, shuttling through a continuous cycle of doctor’s appointments, chemotherapy, radiation, emergency visits, surgery and hospital stays. Diagnosed at age 3, she succumbed to Ewing’s Sarcoma six years later.
While Valerie received plenty of love and attention from her parents and older sister, Stacey, there was some hardship. To receive the advanced care Valerie needed, her parents had to make a three-hour round-trip drive from their home in Warren, N.J., into Manhattan.
While the Goldsteins had the financial means and a support system to partially cope with these obstacles, they couldn’t help but recognize that other families weren’t so lucky. After Valerie’s passing, the Goldsteins established the foundation in their daughter's honor to set up top-level pediatric outpatient treatment centers within an hour’s drive of New Jersey’s population centers, providing state-of-the-art medical and emotional care in a happy, upbeat, child-focused environment.
In 1977, just one year after Valerie’s passing, the couple opened the first Valerie Fund Center at Overlook Park Hospital in Summit, N.J.
Almost 50 years later, the Goldsteins have a combined eight centers in the New York Tri-State area, Philadelphia and New Jersey. The Valerie Fund has provided many patient visits for children with cancer and blood disorders.
"The main thing is, the families are getting excellent care," Ed said. “You can’t work for The Valerie Fund if you don’t love these children.”
If Valerie were alive today, how would she react to the success her parents achieved in her honor?
"She would be very proud. She knew she lived for a purpose,” Ed said. “We did everything right.”