At 8 years old, most kids worry about things like homework, what vegetables mom will make them eat for dinner, whether Santa will be good to them at Christmas.
Jordan Mann, on the other hand, spent his eighth year of life not knowing whether he would survive a life-threatening form of bone cancer.
After a difficult year of chemotherapy, he did — and ever since then the 24-year-old Branford resident and manager of Derby’s Marco Pizzeria been trying to help others survive the disease.
The business, located in the Walmart plaza at 656 New Haven Ave., will host a fundraiser Monday (June 24) for Camp Rising Sun, a summer camp for children who have or have had cancer.
The restaurant is usually closed on Mondays, but employees were willing to work to support the fundraiser.
“We’re opening up special for the event and all the staff is volunteering,” Mann said.
Fifty percent of dine-in and take-out proceeds taken in from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. will go to a team of cyclists from the camp participating in this year’s CT Challenge Bike Ride, an annual event that raises money for cancer survivor programs.
A flier for the event is posted at the end of this story.
Mann said that Marco owner Tom Andrew, a Seymour native who formerly ran The Spot, a satellite pizza restaurant on Wooster Street in New Haven owned by, and next door to, Pepe’s Pizza, has also supported the camp for years, even before opening up his first restaurant in Branford, where Mann worked previously.
Marco Pizzeria’s Derby location opened in February.
Mann has a personal connection to the camp — he attended it for several years as a cancer patient, then a survivor, and now volunteers there yearly as a counselor.
It’s a place where kids put in a nearly impossible-to-relate-to situation can find support from others going through the same thing.
He recalled classmates in school looking at him oddly when he was going through treatment because he lost his hair.
But everyone at the camp could identify.
“It’s also a great camp because after you’re cured, you continue going to the camp,” he added. “You don’t get shunned away. Once you come you don’t want to leave. It’s like a second family.”
Scott Capozza, a long-time counselor at the camp who also serves on its advisory board, said he saw Mann mature from a withdrawn 8‑year-old to a role model for current campers.
“When he first came to camp, he was kind of shy, as many kids would be spending a week away from their parents,” Capozza said.
In the next few years Mann grew into a typical teenager.
“The year where the older kids are kind of on the track to be counselors, he really matured, he really stepped up, because camp means so much to these kids that they go there year after year, it’s something that they look forward to,” Capozza said. “He really wanted to continue to be part of the camp. He really showed his leadership skills.”
The last two summers, Mann has been a co-counselor with Capozza in his cabin at the camp.
He said the fact that Mann has been in the same shoes as the children there has an impact.
“All Jordan has to say is ‘When I was a camper…’ and it automatically puts all the new kids at ease,” Capozza said. “And even the returning kids, it makes them snap to attention. He immediately commands their attention. He was one of them at one point.”
