Article and photos by Alex Malecki
HARRISON - “Hiya!” shouted little Brandon Joselson into

Junior black belt Skyler Sack clears six of his peers en route to breaking a board held by Bruce Chung.

Susan Chung’s microphone to send the Bruce Chung’s Tae Kwon Do Demo Team into action. It was a fitting sight considering how the collaboration between Bruce Chung’s and the Pediatric Cancer Foundation (PCF) began almost three years ago.

Bruce Chung’s has been hosting fundraisers for six years now, benefiting organizations such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, owners Bruce and Susan Chung noticed a prevailing melancholy.

Bruce Chung demonstrates a Tae Kwon Do form.

“Everybody was feeling down,” Mrs. Chung remembers.

Reading the New York Times, the Chungs found a list of recognized charities and quickly decided that a great way to diminish the depression would be to give their patrons the opportunity to make a difference. So they posted the list and informed potential customers that entry into one of Susan’s aerobic boxing classes would be a check made out to one of the charities. By the time the Chungs stopped collecting, they had raised more than $10,000.

PCF dates back to 1970, when it was founded by the grateful parents of a young boy who was treated at what is now the Children’s Hospital at New York- Presbyterian Medical Center. Its very first grant was $5,000 for the hospital’s surgical and oncology departments.

Thirty-three years later, PCF is still committed to the cure and care of childhood cancer, funding treatment, research and the purchase of state-of-the- art equipment toward that end.

Black belt Jamie Alimorad (cool guy with shades) does his best “bad guy” for one of the skits.

But it was because of little Brandon Joselson that Bruce Chung’s has been able to give the organization’s Bike-athon that extra kick.

Susan first met PCF Executive Director Nancy Joselson in her Mommy & Me class. Although Brandon wasn’t quite walking yet, Joselson told Susan she wanted him to try. The two got to talking, and Joselson mentioned her work with the foundation and its annual Bike-a-thon.

“I ran home and brought her a big package of stuff,” Joselson recalls.

Today, the studio-hosted fundraiser is the official kickoff to PCF’s annual Bike-a-thon. For the Chungs, it was a way to exemplify one of the most important lessons they teach their students.

“It’s not enough to take, you have to be able to give back,” Mrs. Chung said.

More than 200 packed Bruce Chung’s Tae Kwon Do for the afternoon demonstration.

While many organizations that host fundraisers often take a percentage, the Chungs do not. Instead, the $1,200 the students broke in boards as part of Sunday’s high-flying, action-packed Tae Kwon Do demonstration was all donated.

From the corporate end, Dunkin Donuts provided coffee and comestibles for participants. Locally, even CCG Patisserie (located just up Halstead Avenue) got into the act with some pastry contributions.

When asked why they wouldn’t at least try to recoup their overhead for the event, Susan said the studio practices such generosity “because we should. This is the way we teach our junior black belts.”

This kid’s foot is PCF, the board is children’s cancer. Any questions?

The day’s activities included one of Susan’s supercharged aerobic boxing classes and a family fitness class (with roughly 30 kids) in the morning, and a two-hour show by the studio’s Demo Team, complete with entertaining skits conceived by the students. Tickets sales for the classes and demonstration totaled more than $8,000, “and all that money is going to help little children with cancer,” Mrs. Chung said.

Even before the Demo Team took to the mat, Joselson noted that the show was already sold out with approximately 200 people expected. She said one mother brought in a check for $1,000 that her son had raised.

“Every move that they’re making is creating dollars to help eradicate children’s cancer,” Joselson said, adding that fundraising for the fourth annual Bike-a-thon has already bested last year’s totals “and we haven’t even had the event.”

The junior black belts put on a show.

PCF works by trying to bringing to life the wish lists of the doctors at the hospitals they support: Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, The Hassenfeld Children’s Center at NYU Medical Center, Schneider Children’s Hospital at North Shore LIJ Health System and the Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center. A 40-member board of directors votes on where the dollars should go. Joselson said PCF will use this year’s efforts to continue its support of targeted gene therapy and Wilm’s tumor research. Money raised during the summer swima- thon will go toward the purchase of HEPA filters for the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital.

Even local students have joined the cause. Spearheaded by student Erika Dooms, Mamaroneck Avenue School fifth-graders will be holding a car wash from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in support of PCF on Saturday, June 12.

“They want to make a difference,” Mrs. Chung said of her students, noting that the studio encourages personal development as well as the physical.

And Joselson believes that difference is evident, from increased awareness to the growing number of satellite fundraisers and subsequent community support. That work will continue at the County Center in White Plains on Sunday, June 6 with the organization’s Bike-a-thon. Cyclists can sign in anytime between 10 a.m. and 1 pm.

“You want the child to live longer and lead as normal life as possible,” Joselson said of the youthful patients.

Thanks to organizations like PCF and community-minded people like Bruce and Susan Chung, doctors’ wish lists will continue to come true.