This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Kids for Kids at Avon High School. Avon students raise money for the Children’s Cancer Activity Fund at the University of Connecticut Health Center and volunteer spending time with children undergoing cancer treatment. Every year, students gather on the first Friday in December to light the Kids for Kids Candle of Hope at Riverdale Farms in Avon and award their annual donation to the University of Connecticut Foundation.

This past December, Roxie Kubis, 12, lit the Candle of Hope. Kubis, of West Hartford, is nearing the end of treatment of non-Hodgkin Burkitts lymphoma. At the ceremony, Kids for Kids presented a check for $4,600 in memory of Margaret Ashford, a kindergartener at Pine Grove School in Avon who died of cancer in 2010.

Bud Desmond and Terry Brighenti, whose daughters were two of the original members, have been adult advisors to Kids for Kids for 25 years to support the teens and their compassion and willingness to give of their time for children with cancer.

Silvio Brighenti, Brighenti’s husband and a strong supporter of the organization, died just one week before the ceremony this past December. In a fitting tribute, family and friends have raised another $10,000 in his memory.

Over the past 25 years, Kids for Kids has raised more than $170,000 to support the fight against children’s cancer and helped inspire a generation of young philanthropists.