Dear Readers,

Thanks to your efforts we raised $744 to help the family of Ja’Briel O’Connor, who died tragically on Saturday. Ja’Briel’s funeral will be held Friday at The Church of Christian Compassion (6121 Cedar Ave.). The viewing is from 9-11 a.m. and the service will begin at 11 a.m.

Your contributions went to help offset funeral costs and other expenses – things like clothes and food for the services –  Ja’Briel’s mother, Aisha Watson, incurred. Ja’Briel also has three brothers and sisters who range in age from 9 to 14. The youngest in the family, Ja’Briel was a first grader at the Henry C. Lea School and often helped neighbors on Melville take their garbage out and weed their gardens.

We would also like to thank Katie and Yasser from Café Renata, who lent us a table in their shop as we collected dollars from people ranging in age from 5 to 75. Katie and Yasser also donated Café Renata’s the money from their sales during the period that we were there.

If you want to contribute but haven’t had a chance to yet, there may be additional collections from folks connected to the Lea school. We will let you know.

 – Mike Lyons