May 28, 2011
During the annual Michael Napoleone Memorial Baseball Tournament in Batavia, the Michael Napoleone Foundation presented a $12,000 check to the Center for Pediatric Biomedical Research at URMC.
Accepting the check above are, from right, Kathleen McGrath, Paul Kingsley and Alec Kingsley.
McGrath said the money is being used to cover the expense of more powerful computers. As part of the center's research, scientists take pictures of blood cells to study. The sophisticated camera equipment creates massive files that took the old computers hours to process. The new computers do the same work in minutes. The center also replaced worn out centrifuges.
Michael Napoleone died in 2006 from Burkitt's Lymphoma/Leukemia, an aggressive form of blood cancer.
Mark and Laurie (second picture, left, with her brother, Dave Pero) Napoleone set up the fondation to give back to the community after so many people helped them during their son's illness.
Teams from as far away as Fairport are competing in the tournament, which runs through tomorrow.
Griffin Dellapenna, who was friends with Michael, reads a statement about how he misses Michael and what the tournament means to him.
Griffin met Michael when they were both battling cancer. Next week, Griffin marks his fourth year in remission.
Jeremy Boyle and Matt Roach hit back-to-back home runs during Batavia's game against Oakfield-Alabama.
