Comcast Gives $25K to North End Elementary, Action Team

Nearly 100 people gathered April 21 for the 11th annual Comcast Cares Day at the Alondra Hernandez Community Garden on Portland Street — and at three other neighborhood gardens throughout the city's North end — to additionally mark and the annual North End Cleanup.

The garden, at 20 Portland Street, stands in memory of Macdonough Elementary School who suffered an aneurysm last February at school and died at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center.

Members of her family young and old joined Comcast employees and their families and friends, North End residents, Wesleyan students and local and state dignitaries on the day before Earth Day.

Comcast Cares Day is a company-wide community service day in which Middletown area employees are joined by volunteers from the and St. John’s School.

Those who gathered that morning included: Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, state Sen. Paul Doyle, state Reps. Joseph Serra and Matthew Lesser, Middletown Mayor Dan Drew, Charisse R. Lillie, Vice President of Community Investment for Comcast and President of the Comcast Foundation; Mary McLaughlin, Comcast Regional Senior Vice President; Izzi Greenburg, Executive Director of North End Action Team; Larry McHugh, Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce President; and Principal Jon Romeo of Macdonough Elementary School.

Brad Drazen, co-anchor of NBC Connecticut News Today, gave an exuberant speech to those gathered, adding to the energy of the morning, as children hovered around the donut table and pitched in where needed.

The highlight of the morning was surely the moment that Lillie presented Greenberg and Romeo each with a paint can, which when opened revealed a check — $12,500 each for NEAT and Macdonough — a whopping $25,000 donation that surprised Romeo.

"They told me they were going to give us $500 and to see a check for $12,500, it's just overwhelming," Romeo said, visibly choked up.

Greenberg said NEAT and Macdonough, who both work closely together, will surely combine the funding.

Comcast employees, decked out in green T-shirts, and North End residents, wearing I [heart] the North End tees, got busy soon after the formal presentation ended.

Over on Ferry Street, William Wilson helped two Wesleyan students pick up trash from the lot before turning over the soil. At the Erin Street Garden, Macdonough third-grade teacher Amy Waterman and her husband joined a handful of residents who rototilled the plots, weeded and prepped the ground.

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