Stonehill Student's Relay for Life Team to Hold Fundraiser

March 30, 2012

by Joseph Markman
Braintree Patch

Relay for Life Team Twelve is having a fundraiser at the California Pizza Kitchen at the South Shore Plaza all day on Thursday, April 5, with 20 percent of each check going to the cause.

The team is named after the lucky number of team captain Nicole Colantonio, team member Shaza Alzaim said in an email. Colantonio is a sophomore at Stonehill College who was diagnosed with Stage IV Hodgkin's Disease, a fairly common lymphoma in teenagers, on August 25, 2011. She is majoring in Interpersonal Communications.

Colantonio was admitted as a pediatric patient and has received care at Children's Hospital Boston and the Jimmy Fund Clinic, the pediatric clinic of the Dana-Farber Cancer institute. Since her diagnosis, she has undergone three surgeries, six months of chemotherapy and 17 radiation treatments and is currently in remission and back at Stonehill as a commuter student.

Colantonio was given care primarily by her parents, Jim and Janice, her boyfriend Joey, a sophomore at Stonehill, and her large extended family. Nicole lost both her grandfathers to lung and prostate cancers, and her mother is a cancer survivor. Nicole's 14-year-old sister is also a patient of Children's Hospital Boston.

The family continues to spend much time in the hospital and has close connections with Children's. Colantonio aspires to one day work at the hospital in nonprofit fundraising and social work, and would like to help in the aid of funding under-researched pediatric cancers.

Team Twelve also wishes to honor the memories of Charlotte Rose Kelly, a neighbor in Braintree who passed of neuroblastoma on Dec. 7, 2011; Amanda Imbruglia, a close family friend, who passed of pediatric leukemia on July 15, 2011; and Kyle Piazza, Nicole's high school math teacher, who passed of acute lymphoblastic leukemia on Oct. 30, 2011.

Contact

For more information, contact Communications and Media Relations at 508-565-1321.