A elderly couple who have been married for almost 70 years have become the talk of Nassau County after 20 years of making the kids there happy, most recently with the help of their cute puppy, Daisy.
Over the past 20 years, Oceanside residents Vic and Judie Horowitz, ages 92 and 88, have been frequent assistants at Mount Sinai’s Survivorship in Brothers and Sisters, or SIBSPlace.
At the Rockville Center facility, which provides care for kids whose families are battling life-threatening conditions like cancer, they steal the show.
Judie, a former artist, said, “We’ve become like their grandparents. Sometimes I bump into them in the supermarket, and we stand there hugging each other.”
The weekly volunteers are aware of the positive impact a simple smile can have on these children.
Vic and Judie brighten up the faces at SIBSPlace by dressing up as Halloween characters, playing games, sharing stories from their childhood, helping with homework, and doing a ton of other behind-the-scenes activities.
Vic even cheerfully carries garbage bags to a dumpster in the backyard, and Judie makes a blanket by hand for each child’s sick relative.
Vic explained, “Basically, we’ve been fortunate and blessed in our lives. When we retired, we felt that we were obligated to give something back — and we had the time to do it.”
But nothing gets the kids more excited than when Daisy, a Labradoodle the Horowitzes trained as a therapy dog to interact with local teenagers, visits once a month.
The long-married couple also takes Daisy to an elementary school in East Rockaway, where they read to the pupils to help them feel more at ease while they practice speaking.
Vic, who had worked in industrial lighting and electronics, jokingly said, “They get more excited to see her than us.” The dog is so well-liked that she has her own bookmarks, business cards, and a painting outside SIBSPlace.
Vic will begin by teaching Daisy a few basic tricks when she first joins the group at SIBSPlace, like as bouncing around a miniature basketball or moving her right or left paw on command.
The real fun starts after that.
The children will ask Daisy yes-or-no questions when Vic and Judie place a red and green button on the floor. Cheers and cheek-to-cheek smiles follow as the nice girl quickly runs to the matching color and gets it perfect in an impeccable amount of time.
Young Joseph Maraia, 9, who has known Daisy for roughly five years, told, “I’m speechless when I see her.”
As a huge admirer of the power couple, Maraia believes that playing foosball with Vic and doing crafts with Judie brighten his day. “Things like that make it more comfortable to talk about his feelings,” the boy continued.
Another 12-year-old youngster in the program, Laz Foster, stated that he particularly enjoys the chats he has with Vic and Judie.
“And they always teach us new things,” he continued.
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“Vic and Judie are like family here,” said Joanna Formont, executive director of SIBSPlace, without holding back.
Formont said that she thinks it’s wonderful for the kids to witness directly what a 67-year life of love and devotion looks like. The happy couple met on a blind date with two other individuals in the 1950s, as fate would have it.
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Even though they are happy that they are having an impact, the couple hopes that more individuals of all ages will support local organizations and show compassion to those in need.
