Virginia Beach mom raises money to honor late son with CHKD playroom
Wendy Goldberg remembers the sense of peace that music gave her late son, Benjamin “Dutch” Goldberg, as he underwent three years of intense treatment for cancer.
And while Ben died at 8 years old in December 2016 from neuroblastoma, a rare pediatric cancer that attacks nerve cells, his tenacious and vibrant spirit lives on through the foundation she started in 2018.
The founder and president of Virginia Beach-based certified public accounting firm W.C. Goldberg & Co. created the Benjamin Goldberg Foundation to empower and support children and families by providing healing arts to children diagnosed with cancer while also supporting their caregivers and health care workers.
She said the foundation has raised $85,000 of its $100,000 goal to support the Benjamin Goldberg Playroom, established for hematology and oncology patients in 2021 at the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk.
The playroom, well-stocked with art supplies and games, hosts music and art therapy, dance, yoga and guided meditation. Parents can see their children playing through floor-to-ceiling glass panels, and large windows let in natural light.
“There is no medical intervention allowed in the playroom,” she said. “When they are in that space, they are really free to be away from their illness.”
Ben received treatment at CHKD and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. It was at the Manhattan-based hospital that the Goldbergs were first introduced to integrative medicine, including dance therapy and meditation.
“It’s really evolved over the years, and we’re now able to talk about integrating arts and health,” Wendy Goldberg said, noting the services are not covered by insurance but are made possible through generous donations.
Ben’s father, Jeff Goldberg, was the owner of The Route 58 Delicatessen in Virginia Beach and a former disc jockey on 106.9 The Fox’s morning show in the late 1990s. He died in April 2022 at 64.
Wendy Goldberg, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in 2021 and is still in treatment, has incorporated dance into her life since she was a child. She walks the walk — doing Pilates, yoga and ballet as her own form of healing arts.
“Music and those related therapies did not change the outcome for us, but it did change our story,” she said. “It did change the way Jeff and I were able to show up to be present for him.”
And it enabled Ben, while enduring surgeries, rounds of radiation, chemotherapy and immunotherapy, to quietly reach for his signature headphones and calm his world through music, she said.
“When you allow something as simple as music into a very stressful situation, it just changes everything,” the mother said.
In addition to the playroom carrying Ben’s name, the foundation also supports caregivers through educational programing, health care and community partnerships and with its Peace Out Portal, a free online space highlighting healing arts.
Despite his cancer journey, Wendy Goldberg recalled her son as a young boy who lived out loud, was not defined by his illness and would dance out of the clinic on most days.
“I just know in my heart that another family will have it a little bit easier because of Ben and his message,” she said.
Sandra J. Pennecke, 757-652-5836, [email protected]
How to help
For more information about the Benjamin Goldberg Foundation or to donate to its efforts, visit benjamingoldbergfoundation.org.
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