(LEFT PHOTO) Founder of Liv Like a Unicorn Emma Lipnicky (left) and Colts Neck Reformed Church Nursery School Director Stacey Savage (RIGHT PHOTO) Emma Lipnicky (center)
Each year, the Colts Neck Reformed Church Nursery School chooses a bene-
ciary of its Kids Helping Kids campaign, though which students do chores to
raise money and donate to a worthy cause. This year, School Director Stacey
Savage said, “The choice was easy. Liv Like a Unicorn was a natural t.”
Liv Like a Unicorn is a 501(c)3 nonprot with a goal of raising awareness,
helping fund advancements in pediatric brain and spinal cord tumor
research, and supporting families dealing with the devastating diagnosis of
pediatric cancer. The organization was founded by the Lipnicky family after
7-year-old Olivia, “Liv,” was found to have a diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas
tumor in her spinal cord.
Liv, who attended Colts Neck Reformed Church Nursery School with her
brother, had been complaining of shoulder pain and received an initial misdiagnosis
of a sprain. After sleepless nights, several MRIs and few answers, Liv’s
parents took her to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Here, they were
told their daughter had a tumor and would need surgery.
Just days after her eighth birthday, she was admitted and booked for a
14-hour surgery, during which surgeons were able to remove 40 percent of
the tumor.
“The doctors said because of this mutation it was upgraded to stage 4,
and they estimated she had six to nine months to live,” Emma Lipnicky, Liv’s
mother, said. “We were told to go home and make memories.”
Liv began radiation and enrolled in a clinical trial for a new medication.
Her symptoms lessened throughout the summer, and while her parents threw
themselves into research, Liv began thinking
of ways she could help others affected by pediatric
cancer.
“She never complained,” Emma Lipnicky
said. “She worried more about the other
kids ghting the same terrible disease.”
Liv organized a clothing drive that
summer and raised more than $10,000 for
pediatric cancer research. While she cared for
others, doctors cared for her. Her condition
worsened in the fall, and Liv tragically passed
away on Nov. 6, 2019.
Before she passed, she and her parents
began the Liv Like a Unicorn foundation
through which they create “unicorn boxes”
16 APRIL 2020 | TheJournalNJ.com
lled with toys, books and crafts to be delivered to families in the hospital
with a child.
“Even a month before, when she was in hospice, she kept asking me,
‘Mommy, do you have the paperwork?’” Emma said, noting that Liv was eager
to have the foundation ofcially recognized as a nonprot. “She was our unicorn,
so magical and perfect it’s like she wasn’t real.”
When Savage found out that a beloved former student had passed away,
she immediately contacted the Lipnicky family and offered to help in any way.
“We’re a small school, but our reach is far,” Savage said. “The people at
this school are like a family. We knew we had to help with the foundation and
thought the Kids Helping Kids campaign was perfect.”
Parents were asked to invite their children to do chores around the
home for money. Kids helped fold laundry, wash dishes and even care for
their younger siblings – a task Liv was always eager to take on.
“I’ll never forget the day Jack Liv’s younger brother was so upset in
class, and I called Liv down to go talk to him,” Savage said. “She just hugged
him and told him, ‘It’s okay. I’m right here.’”
Emma added, “She was always his little mama.”
Now in her honor, the students at Colts Neck Reformed Church Nursery
School have banded together to assist other families in similar, heartbreaking
situations. They each did chores, saved money and purchased items to ll the
unicorn boxes.
“Right now, we are working with individual families who have a child
in the hospital with cancer,” Emma said. “The
boxes are great for the whole family. The patient
needs something to do, be occupied.
Moms need something in their purse they
can pull out. Siblings are so important too
because they think, ‘Well what about me?’”
Savage said the students, although
young, understand they are helping others
when they take their money to the store and
help their parents pick out a toy to donate.
“Like Liv always felt and we always tell
the kids, ‘You’re never too little to help.’”
To learn more about the Liv Like a Unicorn
Foundation, visit LivLikeAUnicorn.com
or on Facebook @livlikeaunicorn.
GIVING
BACK
Colts Neck Reformed Church Nursery
School Gives Back to One of Its Own
BY SHANNA O’MARA
/TheJournalNJ.com
/LivLikeAUnicorn.com