Five Towns Helps Raise $150K For Local Boy In Miami Marathon

WOODMERE, NY—The Five Towns community donated in a big way to one Woodmere mom's efforts to raise funds for a group that has helped her family deal with her 11-year-old son's chronic illness. Jacob Hersko has necrotizing enterocolitis, a lifelong condition, and last Sunday, his mother Rachel Hersko led a team walking and running the Miami marathon to raise funds for Chai Lifeline.

As of Thursday, Jacob's fundraising page had raised over $154,00. The money goes toward Chai Lifeline, a volunteer-run and rabbi-founded group that helps children and families with lifelong and life-threatening illnesses.

"Whether it was providing an after school program like I-Shine to Jacob’s siblings while his parents were in and out of the hospital with him, sending volunteers to Jacob’s house, or giving him a summer of his dreams at Camp Simcha Special - Chai Lifeline did it all and for that reason I have chosen to run with Team Jacob in the Lifetime Miami Marathon.Training is not easy, but neither is dealing with illness," Rachel Hersko explained on the fundraising page.

"If the children of Chai Lifeline can fight each day, if they can push themselves to go through hospital stays and treatments, I can do this for them."

Jacob Hersko deals with a feeding tube and bag, but has made friends at his school, HAFTR in Lawrence, according to the LI Herald.

Herkso told the LI Herald that six of Jacob's friends went to Miami to race, and trained on the Atlantic Beach boardwalk to push Jacob in a racing stroller.