By MADDY VITALE
Rob Malfitano will continue to donate to a cause that he credits with saving his life.
The 13-year-old Ocean City resident, who attends the Intermediate School, was born with a cleft palate. Smile Train, a charity providing surgery for children with cleft palates, gave Rob his first corrective surgery at just 1½ years old while he was in an orphanage in China.
A year later, he was adopted by Jenny and Vince Malfitano of Ocean City, and he came to the United States.
On Saturday, Dec. 5, Rob, with the help of his parents, friends, business owners and the community, hosted a fundraiser at Jilly’s Arcade on the Boardwalk to benefit Smile Train.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, masks were required and other safety protocols were in place. The crowd was limited to 25 percent of capacity, Levchuk, co-owner of Jilly’s shops said.
Local kids competed for the title of pinball champion at Jilly’s Arcade. The event raised over $700 for Smile Train, which will be matched by an anonymous donor after Christmas, Vince Malfitano explained. And Jilly’s donated play cards that enabled the children to play games for free for an hour.
At the end of the morning fundraiser, fourth-grader Jack Wheeler prevailed and was crowned the 2020 Jilly’s Pinball Champion. He received a T-shirt and a gift card donated by Jilly’s.
“Jack Wheeler was crazy good at pinball,” said Rob. “He could be champ for years.”
Rob said he has been holding benefits like the pinball competition since he was in the second grade.
He couldn’t give an exact amount of money raised over the years for Smile Train, but he said it definitely is in the thousands of dollars.
A cleft palate is an opening or split in the roof of the mouth and the lip and can cause difficulty eating and speaking.
Rob, a surfer and distinguished honors student, has had seven corrective cleft palate surgeries. The latest surgery was just last week.
The life-changing surgeries are why he continues to put together fundraisers to help other children who need the operations.
“Smile Train surgeons are the ones who gave me a second chance because without them, I wouldn’t be able to make it because of natural selection,” Rob said. “As long as I can have fundraisers I will. I will probably try to do it throughout high school.”
Vince Malfitano said he and his family were very appreciative of everything Levchuk did to support and help out Rob’s cause.
He added that he is very proud of his son.
“Rob just does a lot of good stuff,” Malfitano noted. “He has a good heart. He does a lot of stuff that people don’t even know about.”
Rob and his father hope to hold another fundraiser at Jilly’s Arcade next year.
Levchuk, who is also an Ocean City Councilman said he would be happy to help the Malfitanos whenever they wanted to host another benefit.
“Rob came to me about three weeks ago and explained the idea to have a tournament at the arcade,” Levchuk said. “He just wanted to ask and he wanted it to be organized and nice. I said, ‘You go and promote it and I will give you cards for the guests to to play.’”
Rob, Levchuk said, really impressed him.
“He made the tournament the success that it was. He got the people to participate. He got food for the event,” Levchuk explained. “I can’t name any other kid off the top of my head doing such good stuff at such a young age.”
For more information about Smile Train visit https://my.smiletrain.org
