to contribute
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation
1251 Waterfront Place, Floor 5
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-4209
Phone: (412) 586-6310
Toll free: (877) CHP-GIVE
(247-4483) Web site: www.givetochildrens.org
Gilda’s Club Western Pennsylvania
2816 Smallman Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15222-4722
PH: (412)-338-1919
Fax: (412)-338-1920
Web site: www.gildasclubwesternpa.org
Sharing a moment with Noelle Conover
(in blue) in Matt’s Media Room are
members of the Mt. Lebanon Junior
Women’s Club, which made the project
the beneficiary of one of its annual fund-
raisers. From left: Kristen Napoleon,
Margaret Izzo and Jenn Daley. Napoleon
designed the logo they’re sitting under.

David was raised on Lindendale Drive
and although they are both Mt. Lebanon
High School alums—she of the Class
of ’78 and he of the Class of ’75—they
did not meet until the first weekend of
Noelle’s freshman year at Carnegie Mellon
University, where they were both students.

They married in 1981.

Technology, the center of Matt’s playrooms and carts, also
is central to their work life. Noelle is a Web design analyst at
Development Dimensions International in Bridgeville. David is
the chief technologist at Ansys Inc., Canonsburg.

Located on Smallman Street in the Strip District, Gilda’s Club
is place where people with cancer and their family, friends and
caregivers can gather for social and emotional healing. The 2-year-
old club, with warm, comfy couches and bright open spaces, has
Austin’s Noogieland, a fantastic kids playroom funded by Mario
Lemieux’s foundation. It also has a teen rec room with a pool
table and video games. But, as Noelle realized on a visit to the
club, there was nothing specific for children ages 9 to 13. At
about the same time, she noticed an empty storeroom. “That’s a
sign I’m supposed to do something here,” she thought.

“It’s a great addition for us,” says Gilda’s Program Director
Colleen Dwyer, of the new Matt’s playroom. “This is a great room
to have for [preteens] Dwyer says. “It would be easy for them to
slip through the cracks.”
With a brick wall in the back, the cozy room looks much like
an improv comedy club—the sort of place where funny girl Gilda
Radner, for whom the nation’s nearly 40 such clubs memorialize,
would have felt comfortable. Multi-level built-in seats covered
with pillows, face a large screen. The room can be used for every-
thing from support groups to music to just relaxing, Dwyer says.

60 mtl • september 2008
A tour of the new Children’s Hospital site helped the Conovers
see another way they could help. The family will donate the main
playroom in the hematology/oncology ward on the ninth floor,
says Carol Ashby, director of gifts for the Children’s Hospital of
Pittsburgh Foundation. Looking forward to the opening of the
new facility that is under construction in Lawrenceville, Noelle
says that while staff of the hospital at the current Oakland location
is fantastic, the aging facility is abysmal. “We were told our child
had cancer in a broom closet,” she says.

Playrooms aren’t the only positive things to come out of the
Conovers’ experience. Matt’s sister, Megan, 21, is a senior at the
University of Pittsburgh. Touched by the care her brother received,
her goal is to be a pediatric oncology nurse. While Matt’s young-
est sibling, Anna, 9, a fourth-grader at Foster Elementary, doesn’t
really remember her brother, the rest of the family will never forget
him. Alex, 15, is a sophomore at Mt. Lebanon High School. The
household also includes Noelle’s dad, Nat Calabro, 85.

That support is important each July, when the anniversary of
Matt’s death makes the family’s grief feel fresh again.

It’s a time of year when it's especially good for the Conovers
to know that because they have “given back,” there are things in
place that bring ill preteens and their families hope and solace
“As a parent, I’m never going to get him back,” Noelle says of
her son. “But if I can tell people his story…”