Community Corner

Patch Talk With Jeannie Rossi: Brandon Lions Club and Her Blind Son's Triumph

Jeannie Rossi of the Brandon Lions Club talks about Danny Rossi's blindness from childhood cancer and his subsequent accomplishments, including climbing Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro and graduating from Carnegie Mellon University.

Jeannie Rossi and her husband, Al, have a deeply personal reason for their involvement with the Brandon Lions Club, which hosts its Second Annual Wine and Cheese Party tonight, Oct. 8, at the Barn Theatre at Winthrop.

They have a son, Danny, who lost both his eyes to cancer.

With plastic eyes in place since childhood, Danny Rossi is a mechanical engineer out of Carengie Mellon University, the nation's first blind and licensed parachutist and has climbed both Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro, said his proud mother.

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In 2006, Jeannie Rossi won both the Brandon Idol and Miss Senior Florida contests. She was scheduled to sing with Troy Allen Coman, the 2011 Bright House Senior Idol, at the wine and cheese party, open to the public and scheduled to start at 7 p.m.

Rossi and her husband joined the Brandon Lions Club 26 years ago, after moving to the area from New York, where they first joined a Lions club after talking to the group about their son's condition.

Find out what's happening in Brandonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

She took a moment to discuss her son, her song selections and her lifelong affiliation with Lions Clubs International.

BRANDON PATCH: What do you like about the Brandon Lions Club, which in 2004 celebrated its 50th anniversary?

  • ROSSI: I like the idea that everything we take in, all monies collected, are put right back into the community. Our motto is, "We serve." And we do.

BRANDON PATCH: Lots of groups give back. Why Lions Clubs International, over any other service organization?

  • ROSSI: Let me tell you why. When we lived in New York, our son had cancer of the retina, both eyes, and they removed both eyes. People we knew in the community invited us to speak to the Lions club there because people had never heard of cancer in the eye. They think they can just cut it out, but you can't. They have to take the eye out, and once the eye is removed it's irreparable. It can never, ever be repaired. They cannot replace an eye. So my son has two prosteheses that he wears, two plastic eyes, but he's gone on to become a mechanical engineer out of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He's gone on to climb Mount Everest. He's gone on to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. He is the fi

BRANDON PATCH: What happened to your son?

  • ROSSI: My son has two prosteheses that he wears, two plastic eyes, but he's gone on to become a mechanical engineer out of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He's gone on to climb Mount Everest. He's gone on to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. He is the first blind licensed parachutist in the country. He's a rock climber, a
  • bungee jumper, he married a professor from the University of Pittsburgh and he is now employed at the school from which he graduated. He's an extraordinary man.

BRANDON PATCH: What happened to your son?

  • ROSSI: My son has two prosteheses that he wears, two plastic eyes, but he's gone on to become a mechanical engineer out of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He's gone on to climb Mount Everest. He's gone on to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. He is the first blind licensed parachutist in the country. He's a rock climber, a
  • bungee jumper, he married a professor from the University of Pittsburgh and he is now employed at the school from which he graduated. He's an extraordinary man.

BRANDON PATCH: What happened at that first Lions club meeting in New York?

  • ROSSI:  I went to the Lions club to inform people that this can happen to anyone. This can happen to anyone's child. It's called, "retinoblastoma." He looked like a very normal 3-year-old until, to me, something didn’t look right and I took him to a specialist and they found it.

BRANDON PATCH: It wasn't well known at the time, retinoblastoma . . .

  • ROSSI: He was at an eye institute and that was the only place they did reasearch for retinoblastoma. Nobody knew about it. A child would die of a brain tumor, or a tumor in their lymph nodes, but it began in the eye. They never saw it in the eye. My son lost his first eye a month before his third birthday. He was only seven years old when he lost his second eye. He had 17 different forms of surgery to try to save that one eye, but then they couldn't wait any longer because it wasn't improving.

BRANDON PATCH: What happened after your first talk with the Lions club?  

  • ROSSI: The first thing they did, they got us a tandem bike. They got him a lot of things that are for the blind. There's lots of children's toys for the blind, and books. They asked us, "Why don’t you join? Why don’t you become a Lion?" And when we saw what they did and  how the money was spent we said, "Yes." So my husband joined the Lions club because at the time women were not allowed to join the men's club. All of the wiives formed the first Lionettes Club, in Holbrook, Long Island. Now, it's all one. Everybody's a Lion, so the men and the women can work better together, rather than fighting with each other for all these things to do.

BRANDON PATCH: Still, there are lots of clubs to join in the community, why the Brandon Lions Club?

  • ROSSI: I know there are a lot of organizations out there that do a lot. But we are primarlily for sight- and the hearing-impaired. We collect eyeglasses. Right now I think we've given out 1,300 pairs of eyeglasses and exams, to adults and children, and that's just our small group.

BRANDON PATCH: Tell me more about tonight's Second Annual Wine & Cheese fundraiser, at the Barn Theatre at Winthrop in Riverview, Oct. 8 at 7 p.m.

  • ROSSI: Tonight's event is very exciting. We have live entertainment, the 2011 Bright House Senior Idol, Troy Allen Coman. I also will be performing. I am Miss Senior Florida 2006 and the 2006 Brandon Idol. I was a finalist in the Bright House Senior Idol in 2007. In 2008-09, I was the first place winner in the senior games and I came in third last year.

 BRANDON PATCH: Name two songs for sure you will sing tonight.

  • ROSSI: "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die" and "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody," which actually was written in 1918. It was an Al Johnson song, and revived by every singer there is. It was done by Aretha Franklin years ago, which is the version I do, because that's my era, that’s when I was singing as a professinal all these years ago.

BRANDON PATCH: Make your pitch for the Brandon Lions Club.  

  • ROSSI: Anyone can join the Brandon Lions Club. We meet the fist and the third Thursday of each moth and it’s a dinner meeting. It's at our own clubhouse, on Limona Drive, which is an historic building. It costs $7 for the dinner. We have a meeting and guest speakes come in.   

 

 

 


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