Photo by Amy Thomas
By Chelsea Maguire
RED BANK – Working parents often need help when it comes to making sure their young children get the care and stimulation important to their development. Teachers and other professionals who work at daycare centers are there to help. The Monmouth County Daycare Center in Red Bank is one of those places.
This year the daycare center celebrates its 50th anniversary, and as part of the milestone The Junior League of Monmouth County helped the school by revamping the children’s library and staff lounge. On Oct. 12 the center’s board of directors rededicated the Jack William Perry children’s library, in honor of a young boy who attended the daycare center from 1997 to 2001.
Jack William Perry lived in Red Bank and started attending Monmouth Daycare Center at 4 months old as his parents, Rosie and Eric Perry, both worked full time. At 3, Jack developed a tumor on his left hand and not long after was diagnosed with undifferentiated sarcoma.
For the next 23 months of his life, Jack received inpatient and outpatient care at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, including surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation and clinical trial participation. Rosie quit her job to stay with her son when he was hospitalized; and when Jack received outpatient care they resided at Philadelphia’s Ronald McDonald House. Eric, now the sole support for his family, would come to see his wife and son as much as possible.
“He would go into remission for a while and then it would come back,” said Rosie. “When his counts were good, and he was feeling good, he was able to come to daycare, so he had a fairly normal life.”
“When he felt well, it was pretty much normal,” Eric said.
“We didn’t want him treated as the sick kid,” Rosie said. “We wanted him to be Jack Perry, and he was, especially here.”
The staff of the daycare center has fond memories of Jack. Executive director Heidi Zaentz started her career at Monmouth Daycare in 1999 when Jack was 2 years old.
“He was a trooper,” said Zaentz. “You never would have known he was sick. For somebody that little, who had to have been suffering and in pain, I would not have known that. He was a strong little boy. He had fun and he was very independent.”
Throughout Jack’s battle, the Perrys had support from all over the community. The board of directors allowed Jack to attend daycare free of charge when he was well enough to come.
“When Jack was here,” Rosie said, “the board members, the staff, the faculty, everybody, just took us into their arms and said, ‘When Jack’s well enough to come, bring him in. You come and let this child be a kid, without his illness, without chemo, without radiation, let him come to school.’ ”
“While he was attending, staff and families of children attending at the time had dinners and fundraisers to help the Perrys out,” said Amy Thomas, the daycare’s development coordinator. “He was one child, but the hearts that he touched while he was here were beyond the walls of this building.”
After a third clinical trial failed, the doctors suggested the Perrys return home. Jack was given only 10 days to live but fought the odds by living for two more months; he died Sept. 19, 2001, a bit over a month shy of his fifth birthday. In January 2002 Monmouth Daycare Center dedicated the library in Jack’s memory, but to Rosie and Eric, it was still too fresh.
“We couldn’t even talk,” Rosie said. “Our loss was so raw and so new that we stood at the back of the room and just cried. I remember a woman coming up to me though and saying, ‘I lost my son a few years ago and I will tell you this, that you will laugh, and you will smile, and you won’t feel guilty.’ ”
The staff continued to keep the Perrys in their thoughts and kept in touch with them throughout the years. When the library was refurbished, the administration reached out to Rosie, who was honored by the idea and offered to organize a fundraiser to help give back to the school on the same day as the rededication.
“If we could help subsidize a child for two weeks or provide new supplies for the school, it’s great,” Rosie said. “At the end of the day, it’s about giving back to the community and keeping Jack’s memory alive.”
“In a short life, he made a huge impact on all of us here,” Zaentz said during the rededication. “We wanted to remember him forever. I’m grateful that I got to know Jack and that he was part of my life. Jack and his family are forever in my heart and the heart of Monmouth Daycare Center forever and ever.”
“We’ve laughed and we cried, and he lives on every day in our memories,” said Rosie. “The fact that the library is being rededicated to him is an honor for us because he’s not here physically, but he is here, and he’ll always be here.”
