Jeremy Never Gives Up!

Editors Note: We first featured an article about Jeremy in our Summer 2003 newsletter, after the high school sophomore held his first online coin auction to raise money for our Foundation. As you will read, that was only the beginning of his devotion to our cause and to honoring his grandfather’s memory.

By Jeremy Katz

My grandfather was an aviation enthusiast, and in the summer of 1998, I inherited his passion. Standing outside his hold house in London, I saw the heavy jets on approach to Heathrow, and, combined with many recent flights, I realized that I, too, loved aviation. I finally had an interest that allowed me to get close to my grandfather, but I was only given a year and a half before he was taken from me, with so much knowledge and so many stories left unshared.

It started in 10^th grade when I did a biology research project on pancreatic cancer. Three years after my grandfather succumbed to his pancreatic cancer following a valiant battle, I finally understood what had taken him, and I wanted to do what I could to keep others from experiencing the pain and loss I felt. But, in 10^th grade, there wasn’t much that I could do. At least, not at first glance.

An avid coin collector, I turned to an online message board where I regularly post, and asked if anyone would be willing to donate coins for me to auction, with all proceeds benefiting the Hirshberg Foundation. To my amazement, donations poured in, and by the time I had finished auctioning off every piece, $1700 had been raised. A few months later, I tried my luck at another auction, and with even more success than my first auction, decided to keep running them whenever possible.

While my second and third auctions benefited other worthy causes, I came back to the Hirshberg Foundation for my fourth auction, which, held during my senior year of high school, I feared would be my last. It raised $7225.

My grandfather left this world failing to complete two things. First, he never had the opportunity to go to college, so he was never able to become an aeronautical engineer. Secondly, he was unable to defeat pancreatic cancer. Soon after arriving at MIT, I realized that I had the power to finish those two tasks for him. During MIT’s month-long January break my freshman year, I held another auction, which raised $4000. Then, this past summer, I spent my summer in Los Angeles with Agi, working at the Hirshberg labs at UCLA and watching planes at LAX in my spare time. I left Los Angeles more passionate than ever about helping the foundation.

When I returned to class this past fall as a sophomore, I began the rigorous aeronautical engineering curriculum, on track to complete one of my grandfather’s unfinished tasks. To help complete the other, I held another January auction for the Foundation, and shattered my goal for the auction by raising $7000.

Since 10^th grade, six auctions have raised over $28,000, $20,000 of which has gone to the Hirshberg Foundation. While it’s true that Agi has told me I’m crazy (in the best possible way) for doing what I’ve done, I’d like to think that I’ve just done my part to remember a great man. So long as you remember, no one is truly gone.