Four Seasons Sunrooms -- Giving Light for Life
HOLBROOK, NY (October, 2005) - Four Seasons Sunrooms is giving Jake Brower, a 6-year-old Massapequa boy in the fight of his young life, a bright new sunroom for him to use with his extensive medical and rehabilitation equipment. Since December of 2003 when he was a happy kindergartener at Fairfield Elementary School, Jake has had to endure over 40 different surgeries, including more than 17 separate surgeries to his brain. The new Four Seasons Sunroom will provide him with much-needed space and natural light to help him recover from fungal Spinal Meningitis. It is hoped that the new sunroom will be a bright spot in Jake's life during his protracted road to recovery.
"When I learned about Jake, I knew Four Seasons had to do something to help," Mitch Pisik, Four Seasons Sunrooms chief executive officer said. "My sincerest hope is that our sunroom will be the room that helps him get better and beat the odds."
In 2003, after surgery to remove a cyst on his brain, Jake contracted a post-operative fungal infection, invasive Aspergillosis, and suffered a series of debilitating strokes. Jake is one of only two children to survive this devastating condition. He later contracted invasive fungal Spinal Meningitis, and is now bedridden. The once vibrant "little Mayor of Massapequa" who knew and talked with everybody in the neighborhood, has not spoken since January of 2004. He now lives every day with severely limited sight, a trachea tube and other expensive medical equipment. While other boys his age are playing video games and reading comic books, Jake is struggling to survive.
Four Seasons is donating the sunroom, to be added atop a deck on the Brower's Massapequa home, to house Jake's desperately needed hyperbaric oxygen equipment as well as a spa and other medical equipment for his rehabilitation therapy. The patio room type sunroom will have a seven-inch thick insulated roof with skylights and wrap-around sliding windows of the company's exclusive CONSERVAGLASS PLUS™ to help keep excessive heat and cold out of the room while letting in abundant natural light to help speed his healing.
Jake's parents, John and Lisa Brower, have been caring for his special needs since his first operation in December of 2003. Lisa, formerly a surgical technologist at North Shore University Hospital, had to resign her position to take care of Jake. John, a 14-year veteran of the NYPD, regularly joins Lisa in a constant vigil at Jake's bedside, at home, or during his many extended hospital visits. Exhausted but consumed by love for their son, John and Lisa often sleep in chairs by his bed to be with Jake every minute.
While Four Seasons Solar Products LLC, the Holbrook, NY-based manufacturer and international distributor of the premier year-round conservatory, patio room and sunroom additions in the North America, is donating the new sunroom, its local retail store, Four Seasons Holbrook, is donating the installation of the room on the Brower's raised deck.
"John and Lisa's love for their son is unquestionable," Four Seasons Holbrook General Manager Donna Livoti said. "Their courage and determination is truly awe-inspiring. I'm delighted we can take some small part to help improve their condition in this way."
Jake's medical bills have overwhelmed the Browers. Estimated to be in the millions, one recent three-month stay in Schneider's Children's Hospital pediatric intensive care unit cost nearly $1 million. The modest house in Massapequa where John, Lisa, Jake and Jake's 8-year-old sister Alyssa lives is mortgaged to the hilt and bursting at the seams with Jake's medical supplies. Much of Jake's expensive medical equipment lies under a tents in the backyard of their Massapequa home.
In addition to the extra space for Jake's medical equipment, the Browers hope the natural light the sunroom will provide can bring some health and happiness to Jake in his struggle. Numerous scientific medical studies have shown that exposure to natural light can decrease depression and speed healing while light therapy has become a standard for treating Seasonal Affective Disorder. Four Seasons' exclusive CONSERVAGLASS PLUS, the only insulated glass designed and manufactured specifically for use in sunrooms and conservatories, is supremely energy efficient and blocks damaging infrared radiation, while letting in abundant natural light.
Four Seasons learned of the Brower family through Kids Helping Kids, Inc., a Long Island-based non-profit organization founded in 1997 by a nine-year-old Old Bethpage boy. Although supervised by adults, Kids Helping Kids is run solely by children and teens under the age of 18. Kids Helping Kids Mission Statement is: "If we as kids can teach the youth of America to help each other at such a young age, imagine what we can do for each other when we become teenagers and then adults. After all, the youth of today is America's future tomorrow. Kids Helping Kids – Making a World of Difference."
Four Seasons Sunrooms is the largest manufacturer of year-round glass room additions, sunrooms, patio enclosures and conservatories in America. Four Seasons designs, builds and ships its products from its headquarters and manufacturing facility in Holbrook, New York, to more than 300 independently owned and operated sunroom and conservatory franchises in over 30 countries worldwide. Four Seasons patio rooms, conservatories and sunrooms consistently outperform competing products in controlling solar heat gain, winter heat loss, air infiltration, condensation, glass durability, window and door operation and sheen of paint finishes. For more information, contact Four Seasons Sunrooms at 1-800-FOUR SEASONS or visit us on the World Wide Web at www.FourSeasonsSunrooms.com.
Donations to help Jake and the Browers can be made to Kids Helping Kids c/o The Jake Brower Fund – A Miracle in Progress and sent to Kids Helping Kids, 19 Willow Road, Old Bethpage, NY 11804-1133. For additional information, Robert F. Eslick, Kids Helping Kids executive director at 516-249-9449.