A borough couple managed to turn the tragedy of losing their daughter Jennifer Giardina to brain cancer into inspiration to spread information and assistance for victims of the disease and their families worldwide.
During the three-year period in which Jennifer was undergoing treatment and inevitably losing her battle with brain cancer, the Giardinas decided to start the Beez organization out of their family business. The 40-plus-person organization holds family-geared events to raise awareness and funding for brain cancer research.
"It was my daughter who died, and Jennifer used to work here," said Joseph Giardina, Jennifer's father. "We own our own business so we just sort of started a foundation out of it."
Working with local doctors to advise them where to donate funds and how to shape the foundation's progress, Beez has started to venture into the community with events aimed at children and their families.
All Beez Foundation events have been and will continue to be "family oriented in relationship and with the community," Giardina said.
The Rubber Duck Race, part of the Raritan River Fest held last Saturday in New Brunswick, was the first major event for the group. Beez plans to help those afflicted with brain cancer and their families as much as possible. The plan also includes working with the community, not merely to raise awareness but also to
attract volunteers.
The Rubber Duck Race was very successful, with over 7,000 ducks dropped into the water and raced out of a goal number of 10,000. Including donations, the preliminary figures indicate that over $30,000 was raised for brain cancer research through this initial event.
"That's pretty good for the first shot out of the barrel," Giardina said.
"We're racing rubber duckies for charity," said Beez Foundation member Bobbi Small on the day of the race. "Hopefully this will be the first annual [race]."
"Working with the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts and the greeks at the University, for example, is one of our goals," Giardina said. "The group that the disease targets is young adults and children."
Getting the message out to families can be difficult because many are completely unaware of the disease, Giardina said.
"We want to address young adults, children and families and make them aware that this disease exists," Giardina said, "because until you know someone with brain cancer you don't realize it's the second deadliest cancer in children.
"It's bittersweet, because we've met people who've experienced this terrible disease, but at the same time it's good to know that we're making people aware of it," Giardina said.
The next event on tap for Beez will be "at Christmas time, setting up a relationship with one of the local major malls, probably Bridgewater," Giardina said. "Offering a childcare service for parents where they can drop the child or children off, we'll entertain and watch these children while the parents go shopping, and the theme of that will be Santa's Workshop."
The event would be entertainment for children while working on presents and gifts for children in the hospital.
"We'd have children helping children, basically," Giardina said. "They can see that it's better to give than to receive, but at the same time the kids can have fun decorating cookies and watching movies and playing with Santa's Elves, which will be Girl Scouts. We're involving the community — but the young community — to help the young community."
Ideally, by getting the same community that the disease attacks involved in its cure, more interest will be raised, Giardina said.
"It's teenagers and young adults in college that are going to help the younger kids, hopefully by donating money and helping us raise money," Giardina said.
To alleviate the boredom of winter and the stress of midterms, Beez plans to hold another project in late Feburary tentatively referred to as The Down The Shore Weekend.
"The goal here is to take part of the Raritan Center, part of the Convention Center on World's Fair Drive or some facility on campus and turn it into the shore for the weekend," Giardina said.
"During the day it's a family event, and during Friday and Saturday evening it's a college event," Giardina said.
The foundation plans to continue work on this and many more projects for the upcoming months and years.
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