Great grads: Adam Camiolo, Commack High School

Adam Camiolo's need to help flows through his veins, takes up space in his early memories and even factors into his plans for summer vacation.

He was 5 when he met P.J., a toddler waiting for a marrow transplant to treat his aggressive leukemia. One of his earliest memories is playing with P.J. while his father, John, founder of the Long Island Marrow Organization, put together a drive to find a donor. The drive was successful, but P.J. died waiting for a transplant.

Then there was Rafaello Carone - though his nickname, Rafi, is perhaps more suitable for the 5-year-old. Camiolo met Rafi in 2007 while working at Park Shore Day Camp in Dix Hills. One of the worst things about having cancer, Rafi had told him, was sitting around, waiting for treatment, utterly bored.

The Commack teen's first inclination was to help - a characteristic as much a part of Camiolo's childhood as sports, cartoons and, well, video games.

"I realized the thing that took up the most time in my childhood was my Game Boy," said Camiolo, now 18 and headed to SUNY Geneseo. Then, an idea struck. "It all started with Rafi," he said.

Beginning with his four Game Boys, Camiolo collected more than 100, and nearly 300 games from classmates and community residents. So began Games for Kids, a nonprofit project that collects and donates video games to the Ronald McDonald House of Long Island and the children's ward of Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.

Camiolo also has raised more than $11,000, which was used to purchase 32 netbooks. The small laptops, which will be deployed in a few weeks to McDonald House and Sloan Kettering, are being formatted with parental controls and Skype by Camiolo and a handful of volunteers. Skype, the videoconferencing software, will allow the children, often away from home, to keep in contact with their families.

"He's always done things like that," said his dad, John Camiolo. "When he sets his mind to it, he can do it."

Adam Camiolo also excels academically. He's in Commack's international baccalaureate program, an intense college-level curriculum, and boasts a weighted 4.0 GPA.

And he remains unpretentious and easygoing. His mother, Caryn, bought him his first console, and he's been a gamer ever since. He prefers his Xbox 360 to Game Boy now and likes to play Call of Duty with his father.

Camiolo has that sort of easy camaraderie with his parents, though it's clear they expect a lot from him. John and Caryn are staunchly committed to the cause, and Adam has taken it up with aplomb.

"Once, I went around Grand Central Station asking for people to sign up to the donor registry - that was fun," Camiolo said with sarcasm.

It was a success: He and other volunteers signed up thousands to find marrow matches for cancer patients.

This summer will feature more of that. Camiolo is looking for a part-time job, but his dad said, " is going to keep you busy for some time."

Adam rolled his eyes for effect. "That's fantastic," he shot back, dryly.

He smiled, though, and widely. It'll be a lot of work, but he's game.