Springs School Serves Up Lunch To Raise Money for Students' Mom

The Springs School came together on Wednesday to raise money for two students' mother, who is fighting cancer.

In an hour and a half, a lunch fundraiser raised $1,500 for Tara Loper Mansir, according to district clerk Fran Silipo, a friend of Mansir's. "We called it Teaming up for Tara," she said. "Staff and parents cooked and served," adding that it was "fabulous" to see the school community come together.

Mansir, the mother of four children, ages 22, 16, 6 and 5, is battling cancer for the second time. She told Patch in May that in 2008, just a year after having her youngest son, she was diagnosed with stage-two cervical cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation were successful in that she was cancer-free.

A little over a year ago, she learned the cancer returned and had spread to her lymph nodes.

By email on Thursday, she said she is no longer receiving treatment.

"I am overwhelmed by this fundraiser, which I didn't even know was for my family until recently," she wrote. "I am not surprised at the community coming together the way they did, Springs is a tiny community with a huge heart, it always has been. If there is something that cam be done to help, they will be there."

Her daughter Audrey, 6, is in second grade and Aidan, 5, is in kindergarten. her daughter Kattie graduated from the school two years ago.

Mansir founded and runs an organization that has raised more than $20,000 since its inception two years ago. Nana Cares: The Kattie O. Berkoski Foundation, founded in memory of her mother, who died in 2010, awards scholarships and donates money to other local nonprofit organizations.

She is also a member of the Coalition for Woman’s Cancers at Southampton Hospital, since it was the South Fork Breast Coalition. Her daughter Amber, at 15 years old, was diagnosed with breast cancer after a malignancy known as Phyllodes Tumor was discovered in 2006. She had surgery to remove the tumor and is now a healthy 22-year-old.

For more information about how to donate to Tara Mansir's family, please contact Fran Silipo at the Springs School District.

Leave your well wishes and messages for Tara Mansir below in the comments section.