For Sgt. Robert Kirsopp, one of the beneficiaries of the Hampton Township Police Department’s No Shave November fundraiser hits “close to home.”

During the March 22 township council meeting, Kirsopp presented a $1,200 check to fellow Hampton officer Chris Finnigan and his wife, Melanie. The couple established the Liam Finnigan Music Therapy Fund at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital in honor of their son, who was born prematurely and spent his three-month life in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

“During his time in the NICU, Liam seemed to be comforted by music. In their loss and the love of their child, they have chosen to celebrate Liam’s life by creating Liam’s Music Therapy Fund through the Magee-Womens Foundation,” said Kirsopp.

The fund provides sleep soothers to babies in the NICU. The soothers comfort babies with lullabies or even voice recordings from their families.

“This means a lot to us,” said Melanie Finnigan. “We lost Liam 14 years ago, and for the last 10 years we have had the Liam Finnigan Music Program at Magee. And we’ve been able to provide, through all of this wonderful support and donations from a variety of ways, music therapy that helps the babies in the NICU.”

She said that the program is soon expanding to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, which wouldn’t be possible “without love and support from everyone.”

Hampton police also donated $1,200 to Aiden’s Helping Hands with funds raised from No Shave November. Aiden Hanna, a 16 year-old Hampton High School student who was diagnosed in the summer with osteosarcoma in his leg, established the charity to provide financial support for families of young cancer patients.

“During his long stays in Children’s Hospital, Aiden’s Helping Hands has helped other children and their families who are less fortunate by buying groceries, furnishing apartments for those who have been forced to move here for treatments, providing gift cards, put smiles on faces and providing gifts for families who would otherwise not have been able to celebrate Christmas,” Kirsopp said.

At the meeting, council also voted to table awarding a contract for construction at Hampton Community Park until at least April.

Earlier this month, community services department director Kevin Flannery reported that all bids received came in much higher than the township’s estimate of $480,000 to $500,000 for the project. The lowest of the four bids was $655,000, while the highest was $1.1 million.

Christopher Lochner, municipal manager, previously said the scope of the project is “probably not realistic for the budget that we have in play.” The project’s second phase calls for construction of 2,285 feet of trail to loop around the back of Hampton Community Center, according to the township’s website. The initial phase involved nearly 3,900 feet, connecting the Rachel Carson Trail at the northernmost end of the park with the playground at the center.

Council also approved a request from police Chief Thomas Vulakovich to upgrade the township’s video surveillance system. Vulakovich said it will “complete the installation of cameras and the rest of the connectivity that we need to do to bring this system online fully and up to date.”

The cost, a maximum of $90,000, is in the municipal capital improvement budget for 2023.

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