Great Grads: Adam Krochak and Lindsey Murphy, Syosset High School

Lindsey Murphy hopes to one day become a pediatric cardiologist. But for now, the 17-year-old is content with saving lives another way.

Murphy and fellow Syosset High School senior Adam Krochak, 18, have been working together during the past several years to raise tens of thousands of dollars for Gift of Life International, a Great Neck nonprofit that provides lifesaving heart surgeries for poor children from around the world.

The two seniors head Syosset High's Interact Club, a service club affiliated with Rotary International.

They've been raising money by spearheading the school's Blue Jeans for Babies fundraising effort, in which the club's roughly 250 members sell pins they've made out of denim.

Since they joined the club as freshmen, they've helped raise about $20,000 each year - enough to arrange travel for four children from poor countries to the United States and other countries and to pay the cost of the lifesaving heart surgery. Each child's surgery and transportation cost about $5,000.

This year the club has raised $42,000, the most ever. Murphy and Krochak said they've stepped up their efforts by holding more events - lollipop and bracelet sales, selling tickets to a "Syosset Idol" competition at the high school, and holding a pancake dinner with food donated by the local International House of Pancakes.

"We really worked hard this year," said Krochak, who joined the Interact Club board as a sophomore - an honor usually reserved only for juniors and seniors.

Last year, the two students were able to spend five weeks with a 13-year-old Ugandan girl named Lillian brought to the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx for surgery to repair her heart's septum - the partition that divides the left and right sides. The disorder caused oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood to mix.

Over the weeks the shy girl managed to bond with the two students.

"It was literally like hanging out with a little sister," Krochak said. "I never thought I would grow so attached."

Murphy said she was struck by the difference the heart repair made in Lillian's life.

Before the surgery, she said, "I would walk up the stairs with her, and she would be out of breath halfway through. And after her surgery she would be running around, dancing."

Murphy and Krochak still keep in touch with Lillian. They videotaped Interact Club members singing "Happy Birthday" to her and sent the video to her home in Uganda.

"I talked to her a little while ago," Murphy said. "She has a boyfriend in Uganda, she plays volleyball, which she couldn't play when she was sick . . . It just has definitely been the inspiration for this year, without a doubt."

In April, Murphy and Interact Club adviser Carisa Steinberg traveled to El Salvador over spring break to visit children awaiting heart surgery, including four who will undergo surgery thanks to funds the Syosset High School club raised.

That includes 7-year-old Veronica, who is scheduled for surgery at Montefiore this month.

"The trip really reaffirmed my belief in Gift for Life," Murphy said. "It's not about heart surgeries - it's about entire families."

The experience of running the Interact Club and making a difference internationally has made both students want to continue in public service.

Krochak plans to go to the University of Michigan, where he will study business. He said he wants to become a music executive.

"This club has honestly been one of the most developmental things in my life," he said. "It's made me more mature."

Murphy is deciding between Boston College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But first, she is going to spend a year with AmeriCorps, a federal service program. She will be stationed in Mississippi, helping Habitat for Humanity and with the Gulf oil spill cleanup and other disaster relief.

"I just felt like I am so passionate about what I'm doing and I could bring so much more to the college setting if I had another year of something like this under my belt," she said.