Eisenhower Park was filled with runners last Friday and for a good cause: Helping fulfill a dream of Raymond Morell, who died last year, likely from a 9/11-related cancer, at 54.
Morell, a longtime Floral Park resident, dedicated over 15 years of his life to others through WellLife, a nonprofit supporting people with mental health challenges and developmental disabilities. As the facilities director and lover of historic buildings, he advocated for the preservation of those he came across in his life and work, including a rundown, historic two-story building owned by WellLife in Hollis, Queens.
The nonprofit never had the funds to restore the building. When his seemingly sudden death shocked many at the organization, CEO Sherry Tucker said she and his team came together to memorialize him in the most fitting way possible: Running to raise $100,000 to renovate the Hollis building to support recreation and social events for the people served by WellLife, about a dozen of whom live in an adjacent building.
“‘I had always said, Oh, it’s too far gone. We just should tear it down and replace it with something,’” Tucker said. “Ray was always very, very concerned for the building. He wanted to restore it. Trying to bring it back was something that was very dear to him. So, we decided that that would become our project. It would be called Ray’s Place.”
His wife, Alycia Morell, said her late husband would have been truly overwhelmed by his team’s efforts to restore the building in his memory.
“I think he would be incredibly humbled, so proud of the fact that they’re finally doing something with that building and appreciative that they chose such a perfect project in his honor,” Alycia said. “He was very dedicated to the job. He really considered them a second family, and took it incredibly seriously.”
Ray’s high school sweetheart, she said his passion for historical preservation stretched as far back as she could remember.
“He just liked the quality and craftsmanship of old times,” Alycia said. “He was very much a car enthusiast. I have an old car in the garage that he built for me. He just appreciated old craftsmanship. I think that’s really what his drive was behind that.”
This year’s run was the second annual Ray Morell Memorial 5K. The roughly $13,000 raised last year was used to carry out the first phase of the building’s renovation. This year’s approximately $40,000 will be used to move into the second phase in 2026.
Each year, the group plans to get a little closer to its $100,000 goal. Tucker said WellLife will continue holding the run until the necessary funds have been raised and hopes the project will be fully funded and completed within the next year and a half.
“This building has so much character, and Ray just didn’t want to see that lost,” Tucker said. “We’re going to do some improvements, but we’re going to try to maintain as much of the historical significance as possible. We’re not going to change the structure itself, because we want to really accentuate the beauty of the architecture that was there.”
“This will be a way for us to really remember Ray in a very special way, because we know it would have made him so joyful to know that this was being done,” Tucker added.
She said Ray would always look up the historical significance of WellLife’s locations across Queens and Brooklyn and tell his team, showing them any original photos he could find. His wife said diving into the past was one of his favorite parts of his work.
“One of the things he loved about his job was when they acquired an older property, he would be able to try to help keep it the way it was meant to be originally, while making it suitable for the developmentally disabled population,” Alycia said. “He tried to keep the historical value of certain properties, and if they had to [demolish] a property, he always tried to salvage what he could.”
Tucker and Alycia both emphasized his extreme dedication to his work, which he continued to serve just days before he died.
“Never did he ever tell anybody at work how incredibly sick he was,” Alycia said. “He went to hospice on a Monday, and I think he was still handling phone calls until the Thursday before. That’s how dedicated he was to that job and to the people there.”
That passion for service threaded itself through Ray’s whole life, she said. He volunteered for his local fire department until it became too physically taxing, then shifted his efforts to St. James Lutheran Church of Stuart Manor, his community parish.
“He was just a good person,” Alycia said. “And, you can tell how good of a person he is by the amount of support pouring out. Not everybody can leave a job and experience that.”
“People always say, ‘Everybody’s replaceable,’” she continued. “I honestly think that when he left, it truly left a big hole, because I knew how much he was loved by all the people that he worked with and that worked for him. He always had them in his heart, and I think that’s what drove him to work until the very end, just his dedication to all those people.”
