When a group of Rockland County men capped their Super Bowl Sunday football game last year with a dip in the Hudson River, their families thought insanity had set in.
This year, however, the same group of men – most of them city cops and firefighters – are putting their “Life’s a Beach” attitude to a completely sane use.
They are raising money so that a 6-year-old boy who has cerebral palsy can travel with his family to a renowned Poland clinic that specializes in high-intensity physical therapy.
Considering the boy, Michael Sparta, and his family barely know these Good Samaritans, any amount is more than appreciated, says his mom, Leona Sparta.
Last summer, friends and relatives of the Spartas helped raise enough money for the family to travel to the Euromed Rehabilitation Center, a unique clinic in Mielno, in northwest Poland.
The cost is a prohibitive $10,000 for the treatment, plus an estimated $6,000 for travel and other expenses.
Enter John Fox, a construction worker who knows a relative of the family and who each year spends Super Bowl Sunday playing football with his Stony Point friends. For the new millennium, they all jumped into the Hudson after the game.
“We were talking about doing it this year, one thing led to another, and we said, ‘Why not do a fund-raiser for the boy?'” Fox said.