Middle School Student's Spin Cycle Event Benefits Local Foundation

Millburn Middle School student Sydney Rosenbaum wanted to make sure she was making a difference when she chose her Bat Mitzvah project. She chose a project that not only would help children in need, but is also a local foundation that is very close to her heart.

Rosenbaum created a charity spin cycling event to raise money for the R Baby Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on saving babies lives through improving pediatric emergency care by supporting life-saving pediatric training, education, research, treatment and equipment.

The fundraiser took place on Sunday at the new Soul Cycle in Short Hills. All proceeds from the event were donated to the foundation.

The Rosenbaum’s close family friends, Andrew and Phyllis Rabinowitz of Short Hills, founded the foundation. The foundation has raised over $6.5M and has funded programs impacting hundreds of thousands of babies nationwide.

“The Rabinowitz’s are close friends of my family and I wanted to be able to help the foundation help babies grow up to be healthy and cared for,” Rosenbaum said at the charity event on Jan. 12. “The event sold out and mostly my friends came to support the cause so it is really great.”

Rosenbaum is one of first kids to participate in R Baby's newly launched initiative ‘Kids Help R Baby’ program.  This initiative encourages kids to get involved in philanthropy in ways that they have fun doing while at the same time giving back to the community.

All of the money raised at the event will be given to the R Baby Foundation and the cycling event alone raised thousands of dollars, according to Phyllis Rabinowitz.

“We are not sure of the exact amount of money raised through Sydney’s event, but it is thousands of dollars,” Rabinowitz said at the event. “This charity has been dear to Sydney’s heart for some time. She is such an inspiration and is showing younger kids that they can volunteer and give back while doing something that they enjoy.”

Rabinowitz also stated that Sydney did everything herself for the event, including designing the t-shirts, promoting the event, picking out prizes for the raffle and more.

“The event sold out in two weeks and she did such a great job,” Rabinowitz said.

Rabinowitz stated she and her husband lost their daughter Rebecca Ava when she was nine days old due to an undetected and misdiagnosed viral infection.  For the last seven years, they have worked hard with the foundation to improve Pediatric Emergency Care for children across the nation.

"After our daughter was misdiagnosed, my husband and I learned that currently only six-percent of emergency departments in the nation have the recommended pediatric supplies and equipment,” Rabinowitz said at the cycling event on Jan. 12. “Three months later, in 2006, we started the foundation and wanted to make sure every child got the care they needed.”

The foundation is going to give the money that was raised from the event to Morristown Medical Center, according to Rabinowitz.

“Morristown Medical Center is the local hospital we work with and we give them money to make sure the children are getting the proper health care and help they need,” Rabinowitz said. “We work with a lot of people who donate money to the foundation and then we give it to medical centers because we want to help the underfunded programs for the children. We also want to try and improve the communication between doctors and parents with proper training. We found that to be lacking and very important as well.”

To learn more about these organizations and our initiatives please visit R Baby Foundation at www.rbabyfoundation.org.