Students, families and staff at P.S. 58 in Carroll Gardens are creating a reading garden to honor Eliana Zakhnini-Messineo, who passed away from cancer in 2024.

A Carroll Gardens elementary school is coming together to memorialize a student who passed away last year from cancer.

Eliana Zakhnini-Messineo was 9-years-old when she died in 2024 of Ewing-Sarcoma, a type of cancer that often occurs in children and young adults. To honor her memory, students, parents and teachers at P.S. 58, as well as members of the wider Carroll Gardens community, are creating a memorial garden and a dedicated library shelf for the young girl who was loved throughout her school.

“Eliana was very smart, very generous,” said her mother, Marianne Messineo. “She loved science and art. She loved cats. She was always ready to help others, yet she was rather shy and didn’t like to be the center of attention.”

Julie Criniere, Zakhnini-Messineo’s kindergarten teacher, remembers the student dropping off her younger sister Sarah Zakhnini-Messineo off each morning as a third-grader, which she started doing after returning to school following treatment. Criniere said the school was rooting for her after her diagnosis in 2023.

“It seemed like she had beaten the odds,” she said. “Unfortunately, she got sick again.”

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Eliana Zakhnini-Messineo, who passed away in June 2024 from Ewing Sarcoma, a form of cancer, is being remembered at P.S. 58 where she went to school. Supplied/Marianne Messineo

Messineo said her daughter never hid her baldness or her scars, and made the best of each day. “She was the wisest and the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

While Zakhnini-Messineo was in treatment, the school community provided the family with a meal train and free childcare for the two younger siblings. After returning to her native France, Zakhnini-Messineo passed away in June 2024. 

A schoolwide ceremony was held that September, and teachers talked openly about Zakhnini-Messineo’s passing with students. A year later, Bethany Hatheway, a teacher, had a proposal to commemorate the beloved student.

“I had had the idea that we could create a garden within a garden,” said Hatheway. “My pre-K classroom is right next to this garden called Lorianne’s Garden, and it’s for a student who died maybe 30 years ago. I’ve been maintaining that garden, and I knew there was a big corner that was just there and available.”

The school’s Parent Teacher Association’s Co-Secretary Suzanna Mettham set up a GoFundMe to help purchase the memorial’s supplies and helped arrange the service days for the school community to work on the garden.

“We got rid of all the weeds and stuff that had been there, and we covered it with mulch,” she said. “The next one is when we put in a planter, like a galvanized metal. There’s bulbs right now for the spring. We will put perennials. They’re ones that last forever rather than annual.”

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Eliana’s Garden will include herbs and daffodils. Photo: Megan McGibney for BK Reader

Hatheway said Zakhnini-Messineo’s parents chose daffodils and crocuses, and herbs such as rosemary, sage, and mint to plant, the latter which Adil Zakhnini, a chef, can use. Zakhnini-Messineo’s friends, now in sixth grade, will paint the planter in the spring and add a little cat sculpture.

Additional fundraisers have included a lemonade stand run by second graders, and one parent started a Cookies for Cancer drive. Some even donated money to pediatric cancer research, which, according to Messineo, gets little attention globally. The wider community has even gotten involved, with Mazzone ACE Hardware on Bergen Street donating soil, rocks, mulch and bulbs. 

There will also be a shelf in the school library dedicated to Zakhnini-Messineo’s love of reading. On display will be her favorite books, including the Harry Potter series, the Golden Compass series, and some French titles. The memorial garden is also meant to be a place for children to read, with a bench circling a tree in its center. 

“We’ll use it for reading,” said Hatheway. “And for quiet things, quiet activities, reading, sitting, thinking and and just answer their questions after that, because they will have questions.”

Messineo is grateful for the Brooklyn community rallying around her daughter and family. 

“It’s really beautiful and heart warming,” she said. “People are really kind and loving.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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