Students Use Break to Benefit Lightner Family

For most kids, spring break is used for rest, hanging out with friends, and not having any responsibilities.

But for six neighborhood kids, the middle day of their vacation was used to volunteer their time and raise funds for Long Valley’s Glenn Lightner, a 13-year-old boy stricken with brain cancer.

first graders and their younger siblings set up a lemonade stand at the corner of Naughright Road and Salisbury Lane Wednesday between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., with signs and a cash register.

The volunteers included Kaitlyn and Megan McNally, Erik and Evan Mitchell, and Joey and Jack Lapella.

The fundraiser was part of a bigger effort at Cucinella, said Joey and Jack’s mom Lisa Lapella, where students were bringing in loose change from their homes to put in donation jars at the school, and creating their own fundraisers to benefit the Lightner family.

Efforts have surpassed $2,800 at the school, Lapella said.

Glenn Lightner left for Belgium on Saturday, March 24 to seek alternative medicine for his anaplastic ependymoma grade III brain cancer that first appeared in December 2007. Lightner has had five surgeries to remove tumors from his brain since he was first diagnosed.

For the young volunteers, between the ages of four and six, who don’t know Glenn Lightner personally, it was a day of helping someone in need.

The weather held up for the stand, with glasses of lemonade being sold for $.50, and traffic was steady, with more than 20 donations coming through before noon.

This lemonade stand was one of many fundraisers going on for the Lightner family throughout the community. .