Petaluma bowling fundraiser a striking success

If striking out cancer were as easy as bowling strikes, 15-year-old Cooper Stark would be the most famous person in the world.

The Casa Grande High School sophomore smashed a rack of pins Sunday at a fundraiser honoring an old friend, C.J. Banaszek, 13, who died in 2014 of complications from leukemia.

But it wasn’t just any strike. The center pin at AMF Bowling Lanes in Petaluma was capped in orange - C.J.’s favorite color - allowing the teenager to win a commemorative bowling pin of his own.

“I just threw it as hard as I could,” said Stark, who bowled alongside his brother, Logan, and another C.J. friend, Vince Gawronski, both 13. “I got lucky. But it felt good. My heart was really pounding.”

The three were among about ?200 people to attend the second annual tournament to raise money for pediatric cancer research. Organizers, including C.J.’s mom and dad, Heather and Cas Banaszek, expected donations would top $100,000.

The event also marked C.J.’s birthday. On Monday, he would have been 16.

“It’s going great,” Heather Banaszek said over the steady crash of balls and pins. “A lot of smiles and happy people.”

Local businesses and families sponsored lanes. Each had one orange pin. If bowlers hit a strike when it was in the center position, they took home a lemon-yellow commemorative pin.

After, they walked next door to a fundraising dinner at the Veteran’s Memorial hall. Proceeds were going to the Philadelphia-based charity Alex’s Lemonade Stand, which has raised $130 million since 2005 to fund child-cancer research.

The organization was funded by the parents of Alexandra Scott, 8, who died of neuroblastoma in 2004. In her final days, she raised money through lemonade sales.

Her mother, Liz Scott, came to Petaluma for the event.

She said recent medical breakthroughs include the development of alternatives to chemotherapy and other cancer treatments that will prevent infections like the one that killed C.J.

Some donations are funding research at major Bay Area institutions, Scott said.

“We want new cures,” Scott said during a break from bowling. “In the meantime, we want them to be less toxic cures.”

On Sunday, an enthusiastic crowd donned orange T-shirts, drank cocktails from orange cups and rocked the lanes.

Fae Urban of Carmel, a longtime Banaszek family friend, high-fived friend Scott Kerr after he got a strike that earned him a commemorative pin.

It was the closest she would get to the award.

“I’m not a very good bowler,” Urban said.

A few lanes down, a team from the Trinchero Family Wine Estates was racking up the strikes. They wore matching T-shirts emblazoned with “Pin-o-noir” on the front and “Holy split that win is good” on back.

Wendy Nyberg of Sonoma said she welcomed a chance to donate to a good cause and have fun at the same time.

“I’m having a blast,” Nyberg said.

“My personal score is low but we’re winning a lot of pins.”