Babylon boy, 12, battling leukemia lifted by wave of community support

Shirts worn with his name. Meals left at his family’s door. And prayers offered up by people who have never the boy.

The outpouring of community support for Babylon 12-year-old Luciano Macaluso since his leukemia diagnosis has been so sweeping that his father says it defies description.

Within days of the Little League baseball star’s April 11 diagnosis, a rallying cry took shape around his jersey number: “Stay Strong 44.” It spread quickly across Babylon, and is now touching much of Long Island and beyond.

“What started as ‘Stay Strong 44’ has become so much bigger than a slogan,” Luciano’s father, Cris Macaluso, wrote in a recent Facebook post. “It has become a community standing behind our son during the fight of his life.”

A GoFundMe launched by the family has raised more than $30,000. The funds are earmarked for treatment costs, transportation to appointments, missed work, household expenses and “the many unexpected financial burdens that come with pediatric cancer.”

The Macalusos are no strangers to navigating hardship. For nearly two decades, they have been raising their oldest son, Santo, who has profound disabilities and complex medical needs.

It’s been a life, as they describe it, built on “strength, adaptation, sacrifice, resilience.”

While the Macalusos knew what it meant to fight for a child, they had not imagined having to do it again.

“What we never imagined was having to do it again in a completely different way,” the family wrote on the GoFundMe page.

And yet.

“Luciano continues to smile,” the family wrote. “He continues to fight. He continues to be himself.”

The community has met that spirit in kind. When Babylon Little League opened its playoff season, Luciano was honored with a ceremonial first pitch.

Cris Macaluso, in his Facebook post, catalogued what the support has looked like up close: every donation, every shared post, every shirt worn, every message sent, every meal dropped off, every prayer.

“Every act of kindness has helped carry our family through some very hard days,” he wrote. “Thank you for loving our boy.”

_{Top: Photos courtesy of GoFundMe}