Martha Cusimano had trouble letting go.
When the longtime Bethlehem-area resident had an idea, she would always see it through, friends and family said. It was a trait that helped her raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for causes across the Lehigh Valley and Osceola County, Florida, where she relocated after retiring in 2008 as the first executive director of the Greater Lehigh Valley Auto Dealers Association.
She never let go of friends, either. Even though she left the Lehigh Valley more than 15 years ago, she kept in close touch with her neighbors and companions over the years, scheduling regular calls and arranging visits between the two states.
She even refused to let go of her own life without a fight after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. She battled the disease for 19 years, seeking trials and treatment in clinics across the country, until she succumbed to the illness Nov. 30 at the age of 82.
Even in her passing, there was one last thing of which she could not let go.
According to friends and family, her dying wish was to see the construction and fundraising for a food pantry and community center in Kissimmee, Florida, for which she was involved in campaigns and fundraising until her health declined.
Cusimano’s legacy also lives on in the Lehigh Valley, and her friends and family here are determined to meet Martha’s final wish. They have launched a campaign to raise the final $300,000 needed to complete the food pantry and community center.
A 1990 photo of Martha Cusimano in front of the Cusimano family home in Hanover Township, as she returned from work at St. Luke’s Hospital. (Photos courtesy of Patti Gomas)
A 1991 photo of Martha Cusimano and her daughter, Patti Gomas, in front of their Hanover Township home. (Photo courtesy of Patti Gomas)
Martha Cusimano is pictured here in 2004 at the Concours d’Elegance, a vintage car show and fundraiser for the Burn Prevention Foundation. (Photo Courtesy of Patti Gomas)
Martha Cusimano, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Auto Dealers Association, is the recipient of the 2005 Woman of Achievement Award presented by the Miss Pennsylvania Scholarship Organization Inc. (Handout photo) Ê
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A 1990 photo of Martha Cusimano in front of the Cusimano family home in Hanover Township, as she returned from work at St. Luke’s Hospital. (Photos courtesy of Patti Gomas)
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Martha’s service
Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1943, Cusimano was raised in a faithful Catholic family. Her mother was a special education teacher and her father worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.
She met her husband, Jim, through their Catholic Youth leadership group while they were in high school.
The two of them were both raised in working class, heavily Catholic, Irish and Italian immigrant communities in Buffalo, which their daughter, Patti Gomas, said instilled in both of them a lifelong dedication to community service.
“My parents being raised in this Buffalo, core faith, service, values immigrant family type of upbringing, they really kind of shared that same sense of values and service to others,” Gomas said. “Lets just put it this way, none of my siblings and I ever had any problem checking the box for school for our service activities. We never had any problem showing our volunteer hours.”
The Cusimanos married in Buffalo the year after Martha graduated from high school, and started their family in New York as Jim entered law school. They moved to Pennsylvania in 1970 and spent a year in Reading before settling in the Bethlehem area, when Jim took a position as superintendent of Catholic education in Allentown.
Immediately, the Cusimanos fostered a tight-knit community in their Hanover Township, Northampton County, neighborhood. Martha was an avid host, and her kids remember her hosting friends and neighbors as well as bishops, priests and other important clergy from the Allentown Diocese at their home.
“She was just the perfect hostess,” said Mary Taylor, a former neighbor of Martha’s and close friend to her daughter Theresa and son Joe. “I was always helping her, because I was a kid then, and we would have to help her clean and set up for parties. She was always hosting people from the diocese and church, and neighbors.”
In her free time, Martha was active with her church and in the Catholic schools community. It was her idea to organize the first marathon for Catholic schools in 1979, an initiative that raised over $50,000 for Catholic education in its first year and $75,000 in its second, according to a news article from The Morning Call archives. The marathon fundraiser tradition still continues at some Catholic schools in the area.
“She came to me with idea for a diocesan marathon for each individual school to raise money,” said Anne Marie Culver, wife of a former Bethlehem Catholic High School principal. “It was a big undertaking, they had never done anything like that before.”
“She was tenacious and persistent about something,” Culver added. “If she had an idea and wanted to go forward with it, she would keep after it until you finally said, ‘OK, I’ll volunteer, I’ll help.’ “
By the time her youngest child, Patti, entered first grade around 1979, Martha — uneasy with idle time at her disposal — entered the workforce. She spent years leading public relations for Allentown College (now DeSales University), where she earned her bachelor’s in business and marketing while employed. She became the lead spokesperson for St. Luke’s Hospital and health network in 1984, leading their community and public relations.
“She just was not that stereotypical housewife of the ’60s and ’70s,” Gomas said. “She was very much like, ‘How can I change the world … in whatever way I can?’ “
For 10 years beginning in 1990, Cusimano also organized the Concours d’Elegance, a prestigious vintage car show that raised money for the Burn Prevention Foundation, now called the Burn Prevention Network.
The car show raised over $100,000 for the foundation annually, turning it “from a fledgling event to one that became highly profitable,” according to Dan Dillard, former executive director of the foundation, which offers burn prevention programs and education, and support for burn survivors.
“She was one of the most unique persons I have ever worked with, in that she had no tolerance or understanding of the word no,” Dillard said. “She set a goal to achieve something, and you could go to the bank knowing it was going to be achieved.”
Around same time she was overseeing the vintage car show, she also established what is perhaps her most lasting legacy in the Lehigh Valley: the Lehigh Valley Auto Show, a popular sales event held annually at the Stabler Arena on Lehigh University’s campus that attracts thousands of visitors every year.
The show brings prospective auto customers directly to dealers across the region while also raising money for local charities. According to GLVADA Executive Director Dan Moyer, the show raises about $150,000 annually and has contributed more than $2 million over the last 12 years for Lehigh Valley causes.
“That was the thing about Mom — she never did anything alone, she was the person who brought so many together to say, ‘Let’s get a thing done,’ ” her son Joe said. “But she was tenacious, she would not let it go. If it was a good idea she would be like, ‘No, we all agree this is a good idea, let’s get it done.’ “
The first auto show in 1997 was so successful that organizers decided to establish the Greater Lehigh Valley Auto Dealers Association, which Martha helmed as executive director until she retired in 2008.
Some time between those endeavors, Cusimano found the time to run for office in the 135th state House District, which represented parts of Bethlehem, Hanover Township and Bethlehem Township in Northampton County. She lost in the Republican primary to Pam Opp, who went on to lose to now-state Sen. Lisa Boscola, a Democrat who was was elected to her first term as state representative in November 1994.
Martha Cusimano, right, and Pam Opp during their primary election campaign for the 135th state house district in 1994. (Morning Call file photo)
Cusimano ran on a platform that included lowering the state corporate net income tax and selling off state-owned liquor stores.
“I think the main thing around her running was really just trying to be a voice for her community, a voice that could be reflective of the types of things that would really help her community,” Gomas said.
Despite running as a Republican, Cusimano “died a die-hard Democrat,” Gomas said, a transition that began around when Barack Obama launched his campaign for president. She was inspired by Obama’s message of “hope” and “change,” Gomas said, and began avidly volunteering with Osceola County Democrats — a tribute to her on their website said Cusimano “led voter registration training and door-to-door efforts for many local, state and national candidates.”
Family and friends
Though she dedicated so much time volunteering, working and fundraising in her respective communities, friends and family say her priority was always her loved ones.
Meg Hower, Cusimano’s first granddaughter, who lives in Florida, said she imbued in her a sense of confidence in her intelligence and leadership. As a child, Hower said her grandmother would enthusiastically celebrate her and her siblings’ and cousins’ accomplishments, encouraging them never to shy away from their potential.
“Gram inspired me to embrace public speaking as a reader at church,” Hower said. “As a young child, I was so small they literally had to set a stool up for me to read into the microphone, I would read the intentions at Mass. You would think I had given an Oscar-worthy performance, she would proudly show me off to everyone after Mass.”
It is the kind of anecdote that may seem trivial — perhaps Cusimano would not have even remembered it decades later — but clearly had a profound impact on Hower as her grandmother encouraged her to pursue her career and her passions.
Today, Hower is a federal government public servant, leading a large team in a high-ranking position (though she could not offer details due to legal confidentiality).
“I’m dead certain that Gram’s encouragement helped me get here, public speaking is a very useful career skill for me, and it began with her,” Hower said. “She was teaching using your voice as a gift, not something to shrink from, and I really embraced that.”
“It mattered to me, especially as a girl, my grandma celebrating without restraint our accomplishments. I never felt self-conscious about what I was capable of,” Hower said. “She celebrated me and encouraged me to go further, she helped us see strength in ourselves before we tried to dim it.”
Just as Cusimano was generous with her time, her talents and her money to people in need, she extended that generosity to her friends.
Anne Marie Gallagher met Cusimano as neighbors in Hanover Township and were inseparable until the day Cusimano died. Even though Cusimano had long since left Pennsylvania, the two kept in close touch with visits and frequent phone calls.
Over the holidays, the two sent each other gifts. Cusimano continued to do so even up until the week before she died, showing that even while fighting for her life, her thoughts were with her loved ones.
“We were very reciprocal over holidays, she usually would send me a centerpiece for my thanksgiving table,” Gallagher said. “That arrived six days before she died.”
Her dying wish
Though she moved to Florida to retire, she remained active as ever in community efforts while living there. She volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for eight years, and led fundraising efforts at the St. Rose of Lima Church in Kissimmee.
She and her husband Jim formed a committee to raise money for a new St. Rose of Lima Church building, which opened in 2017. They also helped to raise $700,000 for a food pantry connected to the church.
She did all of this while battling cancer. First diagnosed with Stage 0 breast cancer in 2007, she was in remission until 2019, when she received a diagnosis of Stage 2 cancer. She was diagnosed in 2023 with triple negative cancer, a notoriously difficult type to diagnose and treat.
While seeking treatment options, she visited specialists at the University of Pennsylvania and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, before receiving treatments in the Jacksonville, Florida, Mayo Clinic.
Her final volunteer project was perhaps her biggest and most ambitious. The Lima Center is an envisioned space, associated with the St. Rose of Lima Church, that would expand its food pantry, adding a commercial kitchen as well as room to hold community gatherings and events. The church’s food pantry served over 70,000 people during the pandemic, according to Cusimano’s obituary, and the new center would help volunteers greatly expand their capacity.
According to friends and family who were with her in the moments before she died, she used her last words to ask for their help to see the Lima Center project through to completion.
Cusimano, along with a committee of volunteers, already raised $4 million for the project, and it needs an additional $300,000 to get over the finish line. Supporters launched a fundraising campaign to help reach the final funding milestone to build the center and to honor her memory.
“I certainly would just want people to remember that she was a very generous person and leader,” Jim Cusimano said. “She was able to attract others to help her in the various missions that she conducted. She was a leader and very articulate and people followed and helped her and supported her and her endeavors, raising funds for the less fortunate.”
The fundraiser can be found at gofund.me/ef3e926a4 on the GoFundMe website.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.