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Elite Scholars unveils its new playground By JUAN LASSO jlasso@liherald.com
Courtesy Northwell Health
Dr. Banu Aygun, the Cohen Children’s Medical Center’s associate chief of hematology, who treated Yusuf Saeed since he was a month old, congratulated him on being the first to receive novel gene therapy to cure his blood disorder.
Valley Stream boy is first in state to receive gene therapy By JUAN LASSO jlasso@liherald.com
Behind a Mickey Mouse mask, 8-year-old Yusuf Saeed with a bald scalp, a likely result of his intensive chemotherapy, sat in the glare of cameras on April 18. With elation in his eyes, he played with his toy dinosaurs, sitting beside his mother and his doctors, seemingly unbothered by the full weight of the moment. Yusuf became the first person in the state with beta thalassemia to be treated for his condition using novel gene therapy. Since he was a month old, Saeed of Valley Stream has been under the careful watch of Cohen Children’s Medical Center doctors, Dr.
Banu Aygun the center’s associate chief of hematology, said. Saeed suffers from a severe case of beta thalassemia, an inherited blood disorder. Roughly 1,200 people in the United States have beta thalassemia, a condition where the body can’t make enough “normal, adult” hemoglobin. As with Saeed, the disorder ties you to a lifelong dependence on blood transfusions administered roughly every two to five weeks. Even under the best of circumstances, a life of routine treatment to stay alive is far from normal and, as Aygun explained, has its drawbacks. “If you think about a person’s lifespan, it is ContinueD on pAge 13
It was a grand yet intimate celebration for students and their families at Elite Scholars Christian Academy who gathered to welcome their new playground space. After a year of planning and construction, a part of the backyard of the Valley Stream-based daycare and early childhood education center has been turned into a modern play space. Gone are the days of needing to borrow the playground space of the neighboring public school, Forest Road Elementary, which has always been a generous partner, noted CEO Paula Mills. Creative fallback options for physical activity like out-ofschool nature walks have been wonderful despite the lack of an in-house playground, noted Mills. But now that the preschool had a play oasis of its own, within a few steps of the school, immersive recreation is now readily accessible. “Our backyard is large, and we would do our little ball games and such,” said Paula. “But we wanted something that would fully develop them physically.” A large patron force behind the project, which covered most
of the playground’s $13,700 price tag was QUALITYstarsNY, an organization that provides a voluntary rating system for childcare programs in the state alongside program guidance and support. Mill’s preschool is comparatively modest to much larger and older nursery and childcare programs that dot throughout Valley Stream. The preschool, serving to children ages one to six, currently serves nine students. Yet Mills has been working with Stefanie Straker, a quality improvement specialist for QUALITYstarsNY, for some time now to “increase and sustain the quality” of the preschool at no cost to Mills. “One of the goals that she had was to really create an engaging outdoor area that would be able to support the gross motor development of the children,” said Straker.
A new playground paradigm The playground comes replete with the sort of things kids dream up for a fun day out — a climbing wall, a five-seat merrygo cycle, and a spout and splash. These play features develop children’s ability to move their limbs and use their senses, but it also ContinueD on pAge 10