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Basketball game raises money for kidney disease research

Southside Hospital employees faced off against members of the Suffolk County Police Department on Sunday to raise money for kidney disease research.

The game at Bay Shore Middle School was organized by Alex and Julie Peterson, whose 13-year-old son, Christopher, has been battling for 10 years a kidney disease called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS).
This story appeared in Newsday on Feb. 13, 2012. Written by Michael Cusanelli. To see story on Newsday, click here.

The disease that Peterson suffers from is the second leading cause of kidney failure in children, according to The NephCure Foundation, a kidney research organization.

“If we have to be here again next year and the year after, we’re going to make [the event] bigger and better,” said Claire Cascio, 56, who works for Nephcure. “Hope is hard to come by, and Nephcure brings hope. It brings families home.”

Alex Peterson of Bay Shore had the idea for a charity game one day while playing a pickup game with friends at Southside Hospital. Peterson, an ER technician, said the group was looking to play a game for charity, so he suggested they raise money for NephCure.

That was two years ago. Now Alex, 38, and his wife Julie, 35, have just finished organizing the second annual NephCure Foundation Fundraiser Basketball Game, which raised about $2,000.

“I’m an employee at Southside Hospital, so it’s nice to have the administrators, doctors