If you’re attending a sporting event in Haddonfield and the participants are all wearing brightly colored yellow shoelaces, you’ll know what it means.
An avid sports fan and athlete, Garstkiewicz plays basketball, football and lacrosse, so when he was first diagnosed, a group of parents from his seventh grade lacrosse team reached out to Go4theGoal Foundation to order a few hundred neon yellow shoelaces to distribute to kids around town to show both support for him and his family and to raise awareness about pediatric cancer in the community.
Based in Merchantville, the Go4theGoal Foundation is a 501 © 3 non-profit charitable organization founded in 2006 by Dr. Richard and Beth Stefanacci, soon after their oldest child was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.
The foundation created “Lace-Up 4 Pediatric Cancer,” a program that provides brightly colored shoelaces to local sports teams to show their support for a cancer patient in their community. After Garstkiewicz was diagnosed with cancer, the group provided the lacrosse team with about 300 pairs of the laces.
“Within hours we had orders for almost 1,000 laces, and ‘Lace-Up and Help Kick Pediatric Cancer’ was born,” said Jean-Anne McMahon, a Haddonfield resident and friend of Jason’s family. “Due to the overwhelming demand, we ordered an additional 3,000 laces.”
The Haddonfield Memorial High School varsity basketball teams and the Haddonfield Middle School basketball teams are already wearing the laces.
Go4theGoal’s neon yellow shoelaces will be on sale for $3 per pair at Haddonfield’s three elementary schools and Middle School on Wednesday, Feb. 8. Laces will also be available for sale the weekend of Feb. 10 to 12 at several town sports events and at many Haddonfield retailers, including Haddonfield Running Company and HerSport. Proceeds will benefit both Jason and his family and the Go4theGoal Foundation.
The laces are on sale at the Go4TheGoal Foundation website at www.go4thegoal.org/shop.
