Community Corner
Farmingdale Front-Liner Newlyweds Are Going To The Super Bowl
The couple, who have served on the front lines during the coronavirus pandemic, happen to be Tampa Bay Buccaneers superfans.
FARMINGDALE, NY — A pair of newlywed health care heroes are going to the Super Bowl.
Maciej Mazurkiewicz and Kimberly Smith, who are Farmingdale residents, will be going to Sunday's big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers after Northwell Health arranged for the couple to receive two tickets, according to a news release. The front-liners will be cheering on their Bucs, of which they are super fans.
Mazurkiewicz, a physician assistant at Lenox Hill Hospital, and Smith, a pediatric oncology nurse at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, have served on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic and put off their honeymoon after being wed during a simple service on Aug. 21, 2020.
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The couple got engaged on Clearwater Beach during Super Bowl week exactly one year ago while vacationing in Tampa Bay. They have made regular trips to Florida to see the Bucs play since they began dating years earlier.
When the Bucs won the NFC championship against the Green Bay Packers and a trip to the Super Bowl — which happens to be in Tampa this season — both Mazurkiewicz and Smith scrambled to find tickets. They came away empty-handed until a colleague wrote about their plight and all that they endured to the human resources team at Lenox Hill, according to Northwell Health.
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The couple received another gift from JetBlue, which had a standing offer of flight vouchers for health care heroes. The two are booked to fly from JFK to Orlando via JetBlue on Saturday.
The Tampa trip will double as their honeymoon. While they kept their wedding date despite restrictions that forced them to scale back plans from a super-sized reception at a Long Island catering hall to a modest family gathering in their back yard, the planned honeymoon to Hawaii was canceled. Like many of their co-workers, Mazurkiewicz and Smith each were deployed to COVID units during the surge.
Now they can root on their favorite NFL squad on the grandest stage and celebrate their nuptials during a Florida getaway.
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