Make-A-Wish event remembers boy who always thought about others

Even as he dealt with cancer, Zachary Kass-Gerji of Wexford was thinking more about others than about himself.

Zachary passed away March 26, 2018, not long after he and his family took a trip to the Bahamas through Make-A-Wish Greater Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

On the plane home, he told his mother that he didn’t want a party for his upcoming 17th birthday. Instead, he wanted to do a fundraiser so that other kids with critical illnesses could have their own dreams come true.

Zachary didn’t see the fundraiser come to pass, but — even as they mourned — his mother Debbie Kass-Gerji and sisters Rachel Miller and Robin Kass-Gerji made sure it happened last April.

Now, the second annual Zachary’s Wish for Make-A-Wish event is set for 1-6 p.m. April 7 at Jergel’s Rhythm Grille in Warrendale.

The afternoon will feature music by Pittsburgh party band Steeltown from 2-4 p.m., along with auctions, gifts and prizes.

Tickets are $5 in advance at eventbrite.com, or $10 at the door.

The inaugural fundraiser, along with memorial gifts and some school fundraisers, raised around $30,000, says Stephanie Pugliese, area Make-A-Wish director of development.

“In 2018, Zachary’s Wish helped to fund the wishes of three wish kids from the area,” she says, including a young girl who visited Florida theme parks, a young girl who received a bedroom makeover and a young man who went on a family ski trip to Wyoming.

Zachary wanted to be a marine biologist, his mother says, and his Bahamas adventure included five days at the Dolphin Cay marine habitat at Atlantis Paradise Island resort, where he interacted with trainers, veterinarians and marine biologists.

“He kept asking, ‘Can we do (a fundraiser) so someone else can do this, too?’ He never realized how sick he was,” Kass-Gerji says. “He never cared about himself, he just wanted to help someone else.”