‘His heart was too big for his body’

Lawrence High School student Uryan Rampersaud dies

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Lawrence High School senior Uryan Rampersaud, an Inwood resident and senior at Lawrence High school where he was an honor student, died on Dec. 29 from a collapsed mitral valve (a heart defect when a valve doesn’t close properly and the blood doesn’t flow correctly). He was 17. A funeral service was held on Jan. 3. Friends and family gathered for a memorial service at the high school last Saturday.

Rampersaud’s friends Jake Gottesman, Jeremy DiLuzio, Ron Hirshberg, Gabi Golan, Habeeb Famuyide, Richard Luna, Kwadwo Agyapong, Nicole Gartner and Albert Salama created a page on the website stayclassy.org and are encouraging the community to donate to build a school in a third world country in Rampersaud’s memory.

The student’s goal is to raise $10,000 and currently the total is $1,275. To get the word out about what they are doing in memory of their friend, the students have used social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter to attract people to the website to donate.

On stayclassy.org, Rampersaud’s friends wrote, “We could sit here and tell you all how much we miss our dear friend, Uryan Rampersaud, but if you knew him, you knew he wouldn’t want that. He knows we miss him, because he can see all of us now. He’d much rather hear about all that he’s done for everyone. From his smiling face to his loyalty, there was no one in the world that didn’t share positive energy with this boy. No matter where you were from, no matter where you were headed, there was always room in Uyran’s heart for you. His brother Dylan said it beautifully, ‘his heart was too big for his body.”

To donate visit uryan.stayclassy.org