Community Pours Love Into GoFundMe Fundraiser For Sparta's Ambrosino Family

SPARTA, NJ — He was beloved throughout the Sparta and Dover communities as a coach, musician and teacher, with a GoFundMe fundraiser picking up incredible steam, after his sudden passing from an aneurysm.

Rob Ambrosino’s niece Alexis organized the fundraiser and retold the heart-breaking account of how her uncle collapsed at home on Sept. 26, initially believed to have been from a heart attack.

However, after arriving to Newton Medical Center, doctors found through some tests his brain had swelled and he was battling the aneurysm.

After he was airlifted to Summit’s Overlook Medical Center where the medical team made attempts to perform life-saving surgeries, Alexis Ambrosino wrote that doctors discovered her uncle’s brain “was under a mass amount of stress for too long, leaving the medical staff with an impossible task of relaying the news to our family.”

“After doing everything they could to save Rob, we received the news that still no one can wrap their heads around - his brain suffered long enough and they could not find any brain activity,” she wrote.

His niece said the only sense that could be made of the entire tragedy was that he was an organ donor, qualified to help, as he was on life support at that point.

“Did you know that only 1 percent of the organ donors can actually donate their organs?” she asked. “This is because there is preliminary criteria which my uncle qualified for both - to pass away in a hospital and be on life support.”

“With no surprise, it was the legend of Rob that was able to do so,” Alexis Ambrosino wrote. “He was able to donate each and every one of his organs to a person in need.”

“We take solace in the fact that he lives on in many other people,” she added.

To date, a 61-year-old man has his heart, his liver went to a 53-year-old man and each of his kidneys, to two people in need.

The fundraiser asks that donations are given to Rob Ambrosino’s family - the man nicknamed the “Mayor of Sparta” because of his influence on the community - to help his family with his final medical expenses; and his wife and children “grieving the loss of their husband and father.”

“To say Rob was known by many but loved by all is an understatement,” Alexis Ambrosino summed up. “He is truly a legend that will live on forever and for that we will celebrate.”

“We love you and will never stop missing you,” she also wrote, “but we will sing, dance and love one another to honor your memory.”

Click here for the fundraiser in support of Rob Ambrosino’s family.

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