In 1976, 12-year-old Robinah Nakabuye was flown from Uganda to receive life-saving heart and brain surgery at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn due to the local efforts of Manhasset residents and Gift of Life – an organization providing critical operations for children across the globe.

Almost 50 years later, many of the individuals who helped save Nakabuye’s life are still involved in the efforts today, including Nakabuye herself and the Manhasset teenager who led the efforts to provide her care during her stay.

John Kennedy was just about 13 years old when he joined the Manhasset Interact Club, a collection of local students at St. Mary’s High School working to put “service over self.”

Gift of Life founder Robbie Donno invited the group in 1975 to attend a Manhasset Rotary Club meeting to get the teens involved more in their community. Speaking at that meeting was the father of the first child Gift of Life treated, made possible through the efforts of the local Rotarians.

Kennedy called it fate that he was at that meeting, where he and his classmates listened to the father who wept as he shared his thanks with the Rotarians for helping save his daughter’s life.

“To a bunch of immature, young high school students who were there just for a good time, this touched us in a very different way than we had anticipated,” Kennedy recalled. “We were very moved by it.”

At the end of the meeting, Kennedy said Donno asked the group if they wanted to get involved to help the next child they were bringing over to treat – Nakabuye.

Nakabuye said her mother struggled to get her medical condition treated in Uganda and the surrounding countries, even traveling to Kenya but it, too, could not treat her.

“My mother used to mope from hospital to hospital because I was always ill, very weak,” Nakabuye said. “I was too tiny and had difficulty breathing—they could not figure out what was the problem.”

It was eventually determined that she had a heart condition, but they still could not provide the life-saving open heart surgery she needed locally.

“So they were stuck,” Nakabuye said. “Until I got the opportunity that is going to be abroad, and by God’s grace the Gift of Life said they could take me to do the open heart surgery.”

Nakabuye was then flown to Long Island where she received the surgery.

Kennedy said Donno handed the high school Interact Club, which Kennedy was president of at the time, the chance to welcome Nakabuye.

She said Kennedy was integral to making her feel at home stateside and keeping her company for the months she was in the hospital.

Kennedy said he and his classmates spent many of their days at St. Francis Hospital with Nakabuye, who despite a language barrier spent hours watching TV with them and playing with toys.

“We would ride our bikes right up to the hospital, park out back and get in gates and doors that probably weren’t supposed to be opened at the time,” Kennedy said. “But we knew our way around the hospital. We were very comfortable. The staff knew us and it was just that was where Robinah was.”

While the open heart surgery was a success, weeks following the surgery she developed a fever. Doctors discovered she had a brain tumor as well and required another operation to remove it.

“That suddenly turned our six-week or eight-week effort into almost a year,” Kennedy said.

With an unexpected prolonged stay on Long Island, Kennedy and the Interact Club stepped up to continue caring for Nakabuye.

While some Rotarians had doubts about the high schoolers’ abilities to lead the fund-raisers for Nakabuye’s care and living expenses, Kennedy said Donno fended them off and backed the students’ efforts.

They mounted various fund-raisers, including a bike-a-thon where local teens volunteered to help with Nakabuye’s living expenses while she continued to stay in the States for about a year until she was well enough to return home.

Today, Kennedy and Nakabuye still stay in touch, but their conversations have transitioned from TV shows and toys to the joys of their children and grandchildren.

“You just pause and say ‘Wow,’” Kennedy said. “Without what had happened in 1976, this wouldn’t be here. Her family wouldn’t exist.”

Nakabuye continuously expressed gratitude for the Gift of Life, specifically Kennedy.

“I have no words, but I’m grateful to those people,” Nakabuye said. “…Having that courage of helping a foreigner, [Kennedy and Donno] have kindness.”

Today, Nakabuye works as a secretary for a heart surgery center in Uganda where she continues to help save the lives of children just like herself.

Kennedy’s involvement in the Manhasset Rotary and Gift of Life was not constant, but he returned to a more involved role in 2019 when he rejoined the Manhasset Rotary, which he now leads as president.

Almost 50 years since Gift of Life’s establishment, they now approach the treatment of their 50,000th child. Kennedy will once again help take the reins of a project he assumed 48 years ago as he and the Manhasset Rotary sponsor the 50,000th child.

Kennedy spoke about the power of the individuals involved throughout the half-century of Gift of Life, saying that regardless of the scale of their efforts, each person is responsible for the success of the organization of the thousands of lives they have saved.

“I think it is important that Manhasset residents today understand the role that their community, whether their parents, their family members, their friends have had in this remarkable program,” Kennedy said. “They should all be proud.”