Three Johnston Students 'Sing for a Cure' on Bay View Chorus

The Bay View Academy choir, including three students from Johnston, sang for a cure on Wednesday, Sept. 12, recording the theme song for the Fourth Annual Gloria Gemma Foundation 5k.

Olivia O’Connor, Brittany Lizotte, and Samantha Lindimore were among 31 Vay View students who performed the song.

Written by Rhode Island singer/song writer Joanne Lurgio, "Won’t Ever Quit" also features performances by students of Bishop Hendricken High School and members of the Gloria Gemma Foundation. 

The three choirs recorded separately, but their voices will be blended to join Joanne’s for the chorus:

For our sisters, our mothers, our daughters, our lovers,
For those we will never forget
In the light of this love I don’t walk alone
And for this, I won’t ever quit

Lurgio says the recording session was a “magical experience. The world is going to hear this song, and they’ll hear these beautiful voices.” 

She said she hopes to use the song as a bonus track on her next CD. 

Bay View Academy senior, Mariella O’Neill from East Providence, RI, was particularly touched by the experience of recording this song. Mariella noted that after having family members lose the fight to cancer, it was particularly poignant for her to meet with survivors at the recording studio, and to see their reaction to the Bay View Academy choir singing.  Bay View’s choir was the first to record, and Mariella says that she enjoyed and watching Lurgio, as “she teared up listening to her dream become a reality.” 

Christine Kavanagh, Bay View’s choir director and a cancer survivor herself, adds that “there is nothing in the world more emotional than music.”  Kavanagh hopes that the song, Won’t Ever Quit, “will leave a positive mark on the world.” 

According to Lynn Simon, Gloria Gemma’s 5k Coordinator, the long-term goal is to create a video with "Won’t Ever Quit" set to pictures from the Oct. 7 run/walk and put it on the Gloria Gemma YouTube channel. 

“The goal is to get it to go viral — we want to get a million hits, and maybe, someday, we’ll get it on the radio,” Simon explained. “I cannot express my gratitude for the Bay View girls really embracing this. It brought tears to my eyes — I mean, it was one of the most inspirational things.”

Bay View Academy is hosting a week of breast cancer awareness activities and fundraisers from Oct. 1 to 5, and is currently holding sign-ups for its group, Paws for a Cause, to walk in the Gloria Gemma 5k on Oct. 7.