Community Comes Together To Bring A Local Home

In times of tragedy, North Fork communities come together to help their own.

Local hip hop artist Mike Check is working to organize a fundraiser for a local family hoping to bring home a relative, Terrance Lawrence, who was badly injured in a dirt bike accident in East Marion almost three years ago.

The event, "Bring Home One of Our Own: A Fundraiser for Terrance Lawrence," will be held on Saturday, May 18 at the Knights of Columbus on Depot Lane in Cutchogue from 7 p.m. until midnight. Ages 16 and over are welcome; a $20 cover will be charged. The night's festivities will include a 50/50 raffle, giveaways, and live performances by Mike Check & Co., The Locals, J.U.S. Evolution, Julea Ligregni, Kopy Koo, and Duece. 

Sponsors include Lucharitos, Braun Seafood, Claudio's, Detailing, Inc., the Townsend Manor Inn, and Mullen Motors.

The fundraiser was organized to help make the Greenport home of Keasha King, Lawrence's sister, handicapped accessible, so that he can come back to the community and family that loves him.

King said her brother was 32 on the fateful day, July 18, 2010, of his accident. He and her son, Jefferson Treadwell, whom she called Naquawn, were dirt biking in East Marion when the handle bars collided and the two men were thrown. 

Her son, who was only 23 years old, died.

"It was really hard," she said. "It's still hard. I still have days when I have meltdowns."

King's brother suffered traumatic brain injury after the accident and is still in a wheelchair.

After the accident, he was airlifted from Eastern Long Island Hospital to Stony Brook; he was a patient there for six months before being transferred to a rehabilitation facility.

Currently, Lawrence resides in the Queens Nassau Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Far Rockaway, where he's been for over two years.

"He can't walk," King said. "How much of his memory was lost, we don't know."

The time has come, King said, to bring her brother home. But in order to do so, her home needs to be revamped, with ramps needed, as well as an extension downstairs to allow for a bedroom and a bathroom expansion.

A rough estimate of the cost totaled approximately $90,000, King said.

But despite the financial challenges, King said bringing her brother back will infuse her family with hope.

"I'm happy he can come home -- it's taken a toll on me," she said. King, a certified nurses' aid at Eastern Long island Hospital, works from 11 to 7 then comes home, takes a shower and a power nap, and heads off on the two hour and ten minute drive to visit her brother -- a trip she makes three or four days a week.

"I just have time to jump in my bed and lie down before I have to back to work," she said.

King is raising two daughters and a cousin.

In her grandchild, Jefferson, Jr. King, now three years old, said she sees glimpses of her son. "He has so many of his ways."

Homecoming will also be life-altering for her brother, King said. "He'll progress more at home. It will mean a lot to him," she said.

And, she added, Lawrence will be able to see his son, 13, again. "He needs to see his son -- and his son needs to see his father," she said. Seeing his son's face and getting a hug will be the best medicine for her brother, she said. "That's the best healing. You can't get any better than that."

King said she is thankful to her friend Check and the community together for rallying to help her family.

"I"m really missing my brother," she said. "It's been three years. He needs to come home."