In Brick Boy's Brain Cancer Battle, Community's Support Has Buoyed Family

The last 13 months have been nothing short of a whirlwind for the Marino family.

Tests. Surgery. Chemotherapy and radiation. Car rides, day in and day out, to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, all part of Liam Marino’s fight against brain cancer.

In the midst of the storm around the 9-year-old from Brick, however, has been the quiet calm of friends, neighbors, friends of friends and total strangers reaching out to help and support the family.

“The community has so much for themselves to do but they reach out and help us,” said Vinnie Marino, Liam’s father. “It’s unbelievable.”

Now the community is rallying once more, this time to support Team Liam, a group of family and friends who are running and walking this Saturday in the 2015 Four Seasons Parkway Run and Walk at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, a 5K run and 2K walk to raise money for pediatric cancer research and survivors’ assistance at CHOP. Liam has been chosen as one of the Parkway Run ambassadors.

“We didn’t really know much about (the Parkway Run) until someone put Liam up as an ambassador for CHOP,” Vinnie Marino said. But he and his wife, Nora, didn’t hesitate.

“We have 37 people on Team Liam,” he said, including not only himself and Nora, but family members, co-workers, “Nora’s Zumba friends and a couple of my old Navy buddies and a couple of classmates I haven’t seen in 30 years.”

The words catch in Vinnie’s throat as he tries to express what the support has meant to him, to Nora, to Liam’s twin sister, Grainne, and of course to Liam.

There have been meals and pizzas delivered to the house to make sure dinner preparation meant only filling their plates after long days, when Nora was staying at CHOP with Liam and Vinnie was working, and then later when Nora was traveling back and forth to CHOP for Liam’s chemotherapy and radiation treatments -- eight rounds of chemotherapy and 36 cycles of radiation -- which are expected to be completed in early October.

There was the day Liam’s two friends, Kip Lovgren and Pietro Senerchia, sat with Liam while Pietro’s mother, Regiane, shaved Liam’s head because his hair had begun to fall out.

“Losing his hair was a big deal to Liam,” Vinnie said. “He was always proud of his hair, because he’s a surfer and a skateboarder.” But one day in the car it started to fall out badly, and Liam asked to have his head shaved.

Not only did his buddies sit with them, but they had their heads shaved, too,” he said, his voice cracking as he recalled the memory of the young boys’ support. It has since grown back thick and full, Vinnie said.

At Lanes Mill Elementary School, where Liam and Grianne are students, a teacher’s proposal for a Hat Day in class became a school-wide “Hat Day,” to show support for Liam when he returned to school after one of the rounds of chemotherapy.

There have been fundraisers and gifts of all kinds -- hats upon hats for Liam; gas cards from Ocean of Love to help cover the cost of Nora’s trips to Philadelphia -- “a week wouldn’t go by when someone would drop off something,” Vinnie said.

The lifeguards and beach badge checkers and ice cream man at the beach in Bay Head where the family goes raised $1,200 for the Parkway Run in Liam’s honor, he said. Vinnie’s co-workers put together a bowling tournament in Mount Laurel that raised $600, he said.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Vinnie, who picked up a second job while Nora was caring for Liam.

Last weekend, the Brick Mustangs American Youth Football program, where Grianne is a cheerleader, held a pediatric cancer fundraiser and awareness day, and one of the games was dedicated to Liam, with proceeds of the 50-50 going to him instead of the AYF program.

Liam and Grianne were picked as ambassadors for the game, and Vinnie and Nora and Vinnie’s father, Marty, stood at the 50-yard line and were escorted to the sideline by the teams, he said.

And of course there has been the support of the soccer community, going back to a coaches’ game fundraiser for the family arranged by Craig Wood, Liam’s soccer coach in the Brick Town Soccer Association just weeks after Liam was diagnosed.

Wood has ”kept Liam’s spot on the team until he comes back,” Vinnie said, which the doctors have said will be this spring, after clearing Liam to play basketball this winter and then soccer to follow.

“That really boosted his spirits,” Vinnie said. “The soccer community has been amazing,” between the fundraisers, maintaining his roster spot and making Liam an honorary captain for multiple teams, both in his own age group and older.

“That has done more for him than almost anything,” Vinnie said.

But he expects Saturday at the Parkway Run will be pretty amazing, too. Team Liam has raised $11,690, exceeding its goal of $10,000, helping to push CHOP’s overall total for the fundraiser to $855,000 as of Thursday morning.

Liam and another boy battling cancer, Adam, will be handing out medals to finishers as ambassadors for the event.

And at the same time, Liam continues his own race to beat the cancer.

“The latest MRIs came back clean,” Vinnie said, and Liam’s prognosis is good because the cancer was caught early and had not spread to his spine. The tumor, discovered when Liam fell on a trampoline and hit his head in August 2014, was surgically removed and the chemotherapy and radiation since have aimed to destroy any cancerous cells that may have lingered.

“He is getting stronger every day,” Vinnie said.

No doubt in no small part due to the love and support shown to him and his family.

Those interested in running in the Parkway Run & Walk can register on Saturday before the race. Registration is $35 for adults, $15 for children and opens at 7 a.m.

There is a GoFundme campaign set up by Wood to assist the family. Click here to donate.

Liam’s mother, Nora, has a blog on caringbridge.org, Love and Light for Liam, to keep supporters updated on Liam’s progress.