Banding together for him

Lucas Campanaro has had plenty of help since he was diagnosed with cancer, but these days, his family needs more help than ever.

The 17-year-old Costa Mesa-born surfer and former Newport Harbor High School student was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer of connective tissues, and he has been going through frequent chemotherapy mostly ever since.

In 2006, his classmates in the school’s Make-a-Wish club raised more than $4,000 to send Campanaro to Hawaii with his family, where he was able to surf those legendary waves during a time the disease seemed at bay.

But now a different kind of fundraiser is going on as the illness has come back with a grim prognosis. Friends of the family say the financially strapped Campanaros need all the help they can get at a time they just want to spend every moment with Lucas.

Back when Lucas Campanaro got his first diagnosis, older brother J.J. Campanaro dropped out of UC Santa Cruz a few months before graduating, planning to spend more time with his brother.

“You suddenly realize how nothing is important except for family,” J.J. Campanaro said at the time. “We were a family before, but we never had to pull together like this.”

That’s why Maxine Macha, whose son Corey went to high school with the Campanaros, sent out an e-mail to the Newport Harbor community. From that single e-mail, people donated $11,000 to a fund to help the family.

“In a short period of time, less than a month, we raised $11,000,” Macha said. “That’s amazing, but that doesn’t go very far. What I’m hoping to do is raise more money.”

There are plenty of school graduates who would like to help if they only knew the news, Macha said.

“Kids disperse,” she said. “They don’t see kids from school as much they used to. A lot of families know these kids that would love to help.”

Anyone who wishes to donate can do so at any Bank of America by depositing to the Lucas Campanaro Family Fund, Account No. 12152-67158.

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at michael.alexander@latimes.com.