{"id":188393,"date":"2026-04-07T15:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188393\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:42:13","slug":"wading-river-start-kicks-off-100-mile-walk-for-staten-island-girl-with-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188393\/","title":{"rendered":"Wading River start kicks off 100-mile walk for Staten Island girl with cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBronx resident and Marine veteran Jim Hickey began his 100-mile walk from Wading River to Staten Island on April 3. (Credit: Nicole Wagner)\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

A little girl from Staten Island has a friend willing to walk 100 miles in her name \u2014 hoping onlookers will contribute to her family\u2019s hardships.<\/p>\n

Last Friday, Bronx resident Jim Hickey, 64, shouldered a knapsack in front of Amore Fine Jewelry at East Wind in Wading River and set out on a trek from the East End to Staten Island to highlight the plight of Lucy Dina, a 6-year-old battling neuroblastoma.<\/p>\n

She is the 40th child the Marine veteran has honored over the past 28 years, walking in the names of children with cancer and asking strangers he meets along the way to donate directly to their families.<\/p>\n

Mr. Hickey connected with Lucy\u2019s family through Facebook last November and quickly became part of their lives, visiting her in the hospital and keeping in touch with her mother, Lori Del Percio.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s just an amazing, amazing little kid, and their family is fantastic,\u201d Mr. Hickey told the Riverhead News-Review before beginning his journey. <\/p>\n

\"\"Lucy Dina, 6, of Staten Island, is battling neuroblastoma. (Courtesy Lori Del Percio)<\/p>\n

Lucy\u2019s story<\/p>\n

Lucy was first diagnosed when she was nine months old with neuroblastoma \u2014 a rare, aggressive cancer that mostly affects children 5 or younger, according to the Mayo Clinic<\/a>. She had been in remission for about four and a half years last August when a tumor was found in her leg, which fractured her femur.<\/p>\n

The girl was bedridden for two months while receiving chemotherapy before rods and screws were inserted to reinforce the bone. She will be receiving immunotherapy for a week once a month until her next cancer scan in May or June, her family said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beyond the fight for her life, Lucy\u2019s family\u2019s home in Oakwood, Staten Island, suffered major damage in February. Ms. Del Percio said the building\u2019s ceiling collapsed\u00a0due to water damage from broken pipes, and black mold has formed throughout the apartment.<\/p>\n

Ms. Del Percio, her fianc\u00e9, Brock Underwood, and Lucy have been staying at her sister\u2019s apartment in Manhattan near Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital.<\/p>\n

\"\"From right, Lori Del Percio, her daughter Lucy Dina, and Ms. Del Percio\u2019s fianc\u00e9, Brock Underwood. (Courtesy Lori Del Percio)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been back there maybe three times to just see how bad it\u2019s gotten,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Mr. Hickey is expected to complete his walk on Sunday, April 19, at Curly Wolf Saloon in Eltingville, Staten Island, where a fundraiser in Lucy\u2019s name will be held.<\/p>\n

Ms. Del Percio\u2019s cousin Francine Scherma-Pagliorola launched a GoFundMe<\/a> campaign to help the family move to a safer space for Lucy\u2019s recovery or to purchase clean furniture if the apartment is fixed within a reasonable timeframe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As of April 6, it has raised more than $29,000.<\/p>\n

Jim\u2019s journey<\/p>\n

Mr. Hickey\u2019s walk for Lucy has been planned for months, though complications from his own medical diagnoses delayed the start.\u00a0He had his bladder replaced and prostate removed in March 2025, a few years after he first noticed warning signs of blood in his urine during a walk for a 7-year-old girl named Paishence Hansen in 2021.<\/p>\n

The idea for a fundraising walk was sparked in 1998 \u2014 roughly two and a half years after his father died of prostate cancer. About six months later after their father died, his brother, Jack, was diagnosed with the same disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat just messed with me, and I knew I had to so something,\u201d he said of the loss of his father and his brother\u2019s diagnosis. \u201cSo, a couple years later, I don\u2019t know why but I quit everything. I gave up my job, I sold my car, I gave up my apartment. I had no sponsors whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Jim Hickey walks in honor of 6-year-old Lucy Dina who is battling cancer. (Credit: Nicole Wagner)<\/p>\n

With the money in his pocket and a backpack full of the basics, the New Jersey native walked 2,154 miles across all of America. The journey spanned three years and three months and ended in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

During that cross-country walk, which was to help with cancer research at City of Hope Los Angeles<\/a>, he noticed there was a child with cancer in each town he stopped in whose families needed financial assistance.<\/p>\n

Mr. Hickey has walked 9,277 miles since first putting one foot in front of the other nearly three decades ago. <\/p>\n

In all of the miles he\u2019s walked, Mr. Hickey has met many welcoming folks. People have walked miles alongside him, offered him a safe place to rest his head or prepared a warm breakfast in the morning before he gets on the road again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, it hasn\u2019t been without its own risks. On his fifth attempt to walk across America, Mr. Hickey was struck by a car in an Indiana crosswalk and suffered a hairline fracture in his leg. Since then, he has limited the walks to about 200 miles for specific children with cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Jim Hickey and Amore Fine Jewelry owner Phil Grosso. (Credit: Nicole Wagner)<\/p>\n

Phil Grosso, owner of Amore Fine Jewelry, helped make that fifth attempt possible for his friend of 16 years by fundraising for all the necessary logistics.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe actually looked out for me the whole way,\u201d Mr. Hickey said. \u201cAnd if it weren\u2019t for him and everything that he did, I probably wouldn\u2019t still be doing this today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucy\u2019s walk began at Mr. Grosso\u2019s store as a way to pay homage to the man Mr. Hickey credits with making it possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe truly does this for very unselfish reasons,\u201d Mr. Grosso said. \u201cHe does this solely trying to raise money for these kids.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr. Hickey will walk about 7 miles a day over the next 16 days \u2014 a slower pace than years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll trace Long Island\u2019s north shore, take the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan and hop on the ferry to Staten Island \u2014 cheating just the slightest bit \u2014 to end his walk at Curly Wolf Saloon, which will host a fundraiser in Lucy\u2019s name on April 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 6-year-old has a nickname for her benefactor: \u201cJim Business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Del Percio said Mr. Hickey has become part of their family, visiting Lucy in the hospital and even venturing out to a karaoke night for her birthday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say pediatric cancer is rare, but if you go on the internet in these message boards and groups \u2014 it\u2019s not as rare as they say,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, for him to pick us and want to do something like that for our family means a lot to us \u2026 We love Jim, he\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bronx resident and Marine veteran Jim Hickey began his 100-mile walk from Wading River to Staten Island on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[75493,13483,75494,75495,75496,75497,75498,1066,9,24,63,75499,75500,134,136,135,75501,4899,75502],"class_list":{"0":"post-188393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-amore-fine-jewelry","9":"tag-cancer","10":"tag-childhood-cancer","11":"tag-jim-hickey","12":"tag-lori-del-percio","13":"tag-lucy-dina","14":"tag-neuroblastoma","15":"tag-new-jersey","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-oakwood","20":"tag-phil-grasso","21":"tag-staten-island","22":"tag-staten-island-headlines","23":"tag-staten-island-news","24":"tag-wading-river","25":"tag-walk","26":"tag-walk-across-america"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}