Celebrating 15 years of helping

A schoolmate taunted a 9-year-old boy: “I saw your sister, she’s bald again, when is she going to die already?”
That lack of understanding about what people — whether children or adults — undergo when suffering from a devastating illness is what SIBSPlace (Survivorship in Brothers and Sisters), a free after-school therapeutic program founded by Hewlett Harbor resident Michael Schamroth in partnership with South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside 15 years ago, deals with on a daily basis with nearly 50 kids 5-17 and their parents.
Originally established to help children who have siblings with cancer or another devastating illness, Hewlett-based SIBSPlace was expanded in 2007 to include kids who have a parent with cancer. Donations and fundraising events support the program financially.
Director Suzanne Kornblatt manages a staff of four that provides therapeutic creative arts activities, homework assistance, parent support, field trips, family activities and wellness workshops.
“The focus was usually on the patient, when we started SIBSPlace. That’s when we started caring about the well child,” Schamroth said, as he sat with six parents and SIBSPlace staff immediately outside the program’s main space. “It is a place where children can be children because the people here relate to them and understand them.”

In addition to the seriousness of the illnesses and the continuing impact on the families, the largest common denominator shared was that until someone, in most cases it was a school or hospital social worker, directed them to SIBSPlace, there was no place and no one that could help them with the issues of how to keep the well children emotionally and physically healthy, teach them how to explain to their children what was going on and even have a place for the adults to unburden themselves and how to cope.
“It is a place to cry, a place to [complain],” said Nancy Einhorn, a Bayside resident, whose husband, Richard, died two years ago, and has her son Michael, 8, coming to SIBSPLace. “On the outside no one knows what you are going through. It is very different here. They get you here.”
Elijah Blades, of Freeport, was five when he was diagnosed with leukemia. He has a twin brother, Nathaniel. Now 12, Elijah has been in remission for the past year and a half. The siblings’ parents, Karon and Lennie Blades, said SIBSPlace was a godsend as it has helped the entire family cope with Elijah’s diagnosis, treatment and recovery.
“We hit a home run with this place,” said Lennie, who recounted how Kornblatt spoke in a relaxing voice and talked with Nathaniel one-on-one. Something he needed as Karon was “living at the hospital” and the parents’ energy was directed toward Elijah. “We love it and Nathaniel loves it,” Karon said. “It is a place where you have that support from people who are in the same situation with a different illness.”
Garden City resident Kristen Margolies was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010, when her daughter, Annika, was three. Two years ago, Margolies needed a double lung transplant and had to go to North Carolina. Annika, now 8, stayed with relatives and had SIBSPlace. “She’s good,” Margolies said. “This is the only place that got me and what I am going through.”
In March of 2007, Marina Jordan’s son, Zion, now 12, was diagnosed with leukemia. With three other children to care for, SIBSPlace helped the Farmingdale immensely. “The kids want to come here,” she said. “Donovan, now 21, thinks it is great, Adam, 17 now, was stressed out and then opened up.” Her daughter, Juliette is 10.
With a husband suffering from cancer, Yesenia Reyes, has her four children, 14, 12, 8 and 6, the youngest is a boy, going to SIBSPlace. “I tell families in the same situation, this place is a safe haven,” said Reyes, a Farmingdale resident.