Jon Petraro, 9, once-tormented East Rockaway boy, spreads anti-bullying message in state

Besting anxiety and depression turned this youngster into an author who raises money for charities — including a much-needed well in a small community in northern Nigeria.

Joe Petraro, 9, of East Rockaway, has become one of New York State’s student representatives for BeStrong, an anti-bullying nonprofit based in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

“And now,” he said, “I go to schools and talk about depression and suicide and bullying, anxiety — all that stuff.”

Joe’s remarkable aptitude for improving others’ lives began early — in kindergarten, his mother, Anne Petraro, 44, a psychologist, says, when he raised thousands of dollars by selling popcorn as a Cub Scout.

That also is when Joe was bullied.

“Kids would tease him,” Anne said, “He took that as like learning to deal with himself, with emotions.”

Writing books, starting with “The Pumpkin Man vs The Boogie Man,” helped him work through his feelings.

A publisher spotted that book on the internet and published it and the two that followed, enabling Joe to raise more funds for charities, through the sales, book signings — and karate-themed shirts with the A7 sports company.

“I just thought about being kind and just donating money,” Joe said.

Enlisting children to counter bullying can be effective, experts say.

As Anne pointed out, an anti-bullying speaker like her son, who happens to be a child, gains as well.

"It's really made him a leader, especially coming from a boy who had anxiety himself — and who got through the anxiety." 

As Eileen Kennedy-Moore, a psychologist and author in Princeton, New Jersey, explained: "A lot of bullying happens when adults aren't around." 

Children can be empowered to speak up — or inform adults — if they observe or experience this kind of harassment.

However, distinguishing between teasing and bullying is vital.

"The key difference between what I call ordinary meanness and true bullying is if there is a power difference between the kid being targeted and the kid doing the bullying," Kennedy-Moore said. 

"If the kid doing the bullying is older, tougher, or more socially powerful, or there is a group of kids picking on one kid, that is what makes it impossible for a kid to deal with on its own." 

That is when adults might need to intervene.

For the moment, Joe's anti-bullying talks are virtual, due to pandemic safeguards.

Joe’s visits to a 99-year-old grandmother in a local retirement home are not.

The two are not related; his Adopt a Grandmother program, one of his first efforts, sprang from his not having one, he says.

Said Anne Petraro: “I guess he’s always been like a giving person; his father, Ozzie, always instilled in him, ‘Give more than you get.’”

Father Vincent Bulus, whose homily mentioning his Nigerian hometown’s lack of clean water inspired Joe to help raise the money for a new well for Fadiya Ghugah, said: ”When he talks, I see the leader in the making.” 

Other recipients of Joe’s typically anonymous gifts include Granville, Ohio’s Nightbirde Foundation, which helps young women with breast cancer.

It was formed to honor Joe's friend Jane Marczewski, an "America's Got Talent" singer who died of breast cancer on Feb. 19 at age 31.

“When she died, I made a book about her and an OK song that she’s in heaven,” Joe said:

“It was just like a concert in the sky.”