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| Leanne Cusimano and Robert Levinstein with their 2006 PT Cruiser, dubbed Ogunquit-a-GoGo |
Story and photo by Timothy Gillis
Staff Columnist
OGUNQUIT –
The team of Leanne Cusimano and Robert Levinstein have
jumped in the Fireball Run race, joining Bill and Valerie Sowles of Yarmouth,
and Timber Tina Scheer and Carolann Ouellette of central Maine. Cusimano, who
owns Café Amore and Amore Breakfast, and Levinstein, executive producer of 22Q
Entertainment in New York City, are trying to raise awareness for missing teen
Ajariana Ouftt, from Brockton, Massachusetts.
The new team invited their Maine competitors to dinner last
week to share strategies and prepare for the epic, eight-day race.
The Sowles, who will be trying to increase awareness for the
search for Aydriana Tetu of Lewiston, joined Cusimano and Levinstein at Amore
Breakfast in Ogunquit for some fresh Maine lobster and to share a heaping
helping of strategic advice. (Bill Sowles owns Morong Brunswick and Morong
Falmouth with his brother, Peter.)
Scheer, a world champion lumberjill, and Ouelette, director
of the Maine Office of Tourism, could not make the dinner. Scheer’s nightly
lumberjill show and Ouellette’s busy Monday precluded traveling south for the
evening. Their team will be raising awareness for the search for Ayla Reynolds,
of Waterville.
The new team of Cusimano and Levinstein has had some success
already. The first child they were linked with was considered a “cold case.”
Levinstein plugged her name into facebook and found her profile. He made a
friend request, and was pretty startled to have it accepted a few days later.
“Her page said things like ‘Where are you?’ and ‘What
happened?’ so I was pretty sure it was the right child,” Levinstein said. He
alerted the organizers of Fireball Run of the discovery, and they connected the
team with Ouftt, hoping to help create a greater awareness of her absence.
Levinstein, who was associate producer at Ogunquit Playhouse
for six years and stage manager before that, was back in New England for a
wedding, so he took the opportunity to link up with his racemate. Even though
the Sowles are technically competitors in the race, the four participants
shared strategies during the meal, with a constant eye on the real purpose of
the contest – to help locate missing and endangered children from all over the
country.
The Sowles have also made progress on their search. They
talked to Tetu’s mother and discovered that the girl is a runaway and doesn’t
want to be found.
“She had leukemia as a child,” Bill Sowles said. “She ran
away, they found her and brought her back. She ran away again. Her mother just
wants her to go to the hospital for a blood test to find out how she’s doing.”
The teams will begin in Independence, Ohio, and travel more
than 2,000 miles in eight days, through fourteen cities. The trip stops in
Ogunquit and Sanford on Friday, September 28, and ends in Bangor the next day.
They will complete hundreds of missions, locating items of local, historic
nature or something from pop culture. The teams race to collect points for
achieving a mission, and then find out what the next mission is.
The four talked about using the internet and a network of
pre-established friends to help with each task. “We wake up each morning with a
CD with our next tasks slipped under our door,” Bill Sowles said.
The first stop on the trip in Jamestown, New York,
Cusimano’s birthplace and the hometown of funny lady Lucille Ball. Cusimano’s
café and breakfast place are filled with visual references to the comedienne.
The race is also filled with feel-good stories. Thirty-eight
children have been located because of Fireball Run’s efforts since its
inception in 2007, thirty-nine when you count the recent facebook find.
Last year, the event helped locate twins at a homeless
shelter.
“The father of those two children is doing the run this
year,” Valerie Sowles said.
Next year, no new racers will be able to join, as the
popularity has caused participation to swell to capacity.
“Next year, it will only be for alumni,” Cusimano said.
Asked whether or not they will compete in 2013, the two teams seemed focused on
making it through this year’s epic road rally first.
