Last Updated:6:08 PM EST 1/28/10 Section: News

Lawrence poses during his first ETROF sponsored event at Tribeca Night Club. Proceeds will be given to Goodwill Ambassador.

With a heavy heart and a strong will, junior Lawrence Forte found a way to give back to the community after the devastating loss of his father, Lawrence Forte Jr.

On the morning of Oct. 23, just seven hours after Forte spoke to his father on the phone, he received the news that his father had passed away from a heart attack while on a business trip in Albany.

"After he passed, I didn't know what to do. It was like everything was the same still. I don't think anybody had the relationship that me and my dad had."

Forte's father is remembered most by Lawrence as a father who "was always there." For a person of limited means, he was constantly giving.

"My dad was the one who didn't have that much money, but he gave more than money.

"If I gave my dad a thousand dollars, he would literally pay me back a thousand dollars, and still pay for a movie... and he didn't have it, he didn't have it to give."

Of all the memories throughout the years, it is the simple evenings with his father that Lawrence remembers most, playing Madden video games, watching movies, and laughing together.

"Now I'm realizing that we could just be worth a penny with a hole in it, play Madden all day, go to sleep [and] call it a day... and it could be the best day ever," Forte said.

"There are some fathers out there who don't even talk to their children. There are mothers out there, who don't talk to their children, and there are kids out there whose parents are incarcerated, who would literally switch lives with me just to have a dad like I did...I would never take my dad for granted."

Forte's father lived his life with an incessant drive to give, and after his death, Lawrence plans to fill those shoes.

With the funds he was left from his father, Forte has spent months designing a foundation, ETROF (Forte spelled backwards), to help the community with his father in mind.

The foundation is something that Forte hopes to be a continuous fund for giving to organizations around the community and abroad.

ETROF will sponsor events throughout the community, with a majority of the proceeds going namely to the Mary Therese Friel, LLC Agency in Pittsford, N.Y. The agency, part of an international initiative called Goodwill Ambassador, then takes the donations to places around the community-Foodlink, Gary the Happy Pirate and the Red Cross to name a few.

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