Tenafly girl aids those in need of a laugh

By GARY PANKIEWICZ

(Bergen County, New Jersey)

After putting on her Humor Ambassador T-shirt and foot-and-a-half-tall hat, Lauriel Marger, an 11-year-old from Tenafly, acts out comical skits or hands out informative brochures to promote therapeutic humor.

Marger performs with professional comics at camps for terminally ill children, schools, cancer support clubs, senior centers, and hospitals in hope of changing someone's life as part of the Comedy Cures organization.

Marger was one of the youngest girls featured in a new book, "Empowered Girls."

The idea for Comedy Cures, a non-profit organization stationed in Hasbrouck Heights, was hatched about five years ago after Marger started telling jokes to her mother, Saranne Rothberg, who then had cancer. Comedy Cures is now a national organization.

"She has been the comic muse of Comedy Cures," said Rothberg, the troupe's inspirational speaker. "She has the ability to step outside herself and intuit how other people are feeling. ... Ø She is the coolest kid I know."

"She's a very mature young lady and is very caring with the elderly as well as with the young," said Marty Fischer, owner of the Improv Comedy Club in New York City, a sponsor of Comedy Cures.

Marger was also the innovator of the Wellness Jokebook Program Program, in which participants create joke-filled books as gifts for hospital patients. Some joke books have reached U.S. troops in the Middle East and family and friends of 9/11 victims.

Marger's daily morning joke with her mother has burgeoned into the 24-hour LaughLine project. In June, the 1-888-424-2424 line (which the group says spells out ha-ha-ha-ha) received more than 4,200 calls. Rothberg says Marger was a pivotal part of reaching so many in need of a laugh.

"I've seen that volunteering is as easy as making an ill person smile or recording a joke," says Marger in "Empowered Girls."

Marger's career goal is to become a fashion designer. She also wants to start a camp for underprivileged children who enjoy art.

The Web site for Marger's and her mother's group is comedycures.org.