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Mazurkiewicz, a physician assistant at Lenox Hill Hospital, and Smith, a pediatric oncology nurse at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, have served on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic and put off their honeymoon after being wed during a simple service on Friday, Aug. 21, 2020.
The couple from Farmingdale 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 and a trip to the Super Bowl, 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.
Northwell Health, which owns and operates Lenox and Cohen Children’s, stepped in and procured two tickets to paradise – Super Bowl LV.
"We reached out to our partners at Live Nation, who helped secure the tickets,” said Carol Battaglia, assistant vice president of benefit operations at Northwell Health. “We are extremely happy to be able to help make this couple’s dream come true.”
The couple received another gracious gift thanks to 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 backyard, 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 team on the grandest stage and celebrate their nuptials during a Florida getaway.
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