Scaling new heights on LI for charity

Last year, a group of business people rappelled down a six-story building at 600 Old Country Rd. in Garden City to raise money for autism.

But Jeff Cohen, director of business ventures at the Bethpage-based National Foundation for Human Potential and Family Residences and Essential Enterprises Inc., which sponsors the event, decided a bigger challenge was necessary. So this year participants will scale down the 12- story H. Lee Dennison government office building in Hauppauge.

About 110 people from seven businesses - including Carr Business Systems and the New York Islanders - have so far signed up for the June 11 event. Each participant must raise $1,023 - the call letters of a media sponsor, Babylon-based radio station WBAB 102.3/FM.

Cohen also organizes the annual Fight for Charity each fall, fundraising boxing matches between business people.

"The hardest thing is to step through those ropes," Cohen said of the matches. "The hardest thing [June 11] will be waiting their turn and then stepping over the edge. But it's really just the illusion of danger. It's been done before."