On Sunday, Jan. 15, Pascack Valley is hosting benefit basketball games for the Zack Latteri Foundation. There will be a series of regular-season high school varsity basketball games in the PV gym; all of the proceeds will go to the Zack Latteri Foundation. The admission prices are $5 for adults and $2 for students.

Zack Latteri was a student at PV during the 2014-2015 school year. He battled Leukemia since the fourth grade and passed in the summer of 2015, following his freshman year.  

“He was always bringing a smile to everyone’s faces whenever he was around,” said Valley senior and Zack Latteri Foundation Ambassador Nate Lewis.

Latteri had many close friends at PV, making him and his story very important in the PV community.

“Zack was my brother’s really good friend,” said Lewis. “He used to come over to [my] house a lot and hang out with us. We had a lot of laughs and memories together.” 

In 2018, Latteri’s classmates and his mother, Sharon Latteri, started the Zack Latteri Foundation.

According to PV senior and Zack Latteri Foundation Ambassador Brandon Flanagan, the foundation was created “to raise awareness and raise money for kids with cancer in the hospital…”

One way the foundation helps the community is through creating packages called Zack Packs. Members put together sheets, toys, and different items to comfort and entertain the kids in the hospital.

“Zack Latteri was an icon,” said former PV History teacher Karen Kosch, who currently serves as a Trustee for the Zack Latteri Foundation. “He was a hero. He, in his very short-lived life, brought people together to do good.”

Latteri’s character led to the foundation adopting its motto of “paying it forward.”

“In those years that [Zack] was sick, all he did was think about others and appreciate what others gave to him. So, if something good happened to him, he wanted to give back,” Kosch said. 

The benefit basketball games, which will be held on Sunday, are one of many fundraisers held for the Zack Latteri Foundation. In 2018, PV history teacher Jeff Jasper had the idea for the first benefit games.

“What [Jasper] did was twofold: one to help raise money for our foundation… two, because the kids who graduated in 2018 were so close to Zack, he [Jasper] knew how important it would be to keep that legacy going.”

According to Lewis, the games raise money, and the foundation uses that money to help kids who are in need of treatment and to help people in the community.

“It’s a beautiful continual connection,” Kosch said. “It’s all about Zack, and it keeps the community together. It is exactly what he wanted: to be bringing people together.”

Other than the benefit games, there are other ways for the community to get involved and help out the Zack Latteri Foundation. People are always welcome to make donations. 

Donations can be made via Venmo (@ZackLatteri-Foundation) or by sending a check, made out to “Zack Latteri Foundation,” to  P.O. Box 2312, River Vale, NJ, United States, New Jersey.

According to Kosch, the Zack Latteri Foundation hopes to inspire people to contribute in as many ways as possible, with either donations or acts of kindness to improve the community

“But we [at the Zack Latteri Foundation] also say, pick a passion that you feel strongly about and give to it,” Kosch said. “Pay it forward every day, and be kind to each other. Just live in the moment, and give back as often as you can because when you give, you’ll feel gratitude. It feels really good.”