Jack Giambanco
/// The creator of friendship Lights///

**By Karynne Summars**

Wars, crimes, shootings, bullying. Everywhere you turn, all you seem to hear about was brothers against brothers and more bloodshed. Why? Aren't we supposed to get smarter as a society? Where did the compassionate people go?

This deterioration of our world, as we know it now, was the catalyst for Jack Giambanco's invention of the amazing Friendship Lights. The true story about how he developed the Friendship Lights, will inspire you.

The Friendship Lights idea came to Jack in a colorful and vivid dream one night in the summer of 2012. It was at a time in his life when he was bombarded with bad news all around him. He felt the world was going in a direction that was totally opposite to how he had been raised when it seemed like we all were united and had fun. In his dream that simple childhood feeling came back to him again. It moved him deep inside. There were kids of all ages, nationalities and religions laughing and having a great time together wearing and holding these small colorful bright lights that seemed to represent unity. The next morning he sketched out a design and later in the day made a prototype out of an old credit card. He then taped a battery to a light diode and put it all together. As he handed it to his nephews, he said, "Here's a Friendship Light." They were ecstatic. Playing catch with it and laughing. A simple thing brought them together and soon they were all laughing and having a great time.

From that day on and many late lonely nights, he worked hard every single day, on the Friendship Lights project. He had to learn everything there was from scratch in order to design, build and produce them. There were dark times when he felt like everyone was on the other side of the fence thinking, "How can he make a product out of thin air with no money and no knowledge of fabrication? Who does he think he is?"

In his mind it wasn't a choice, though. It was his driving force to bring balance back into his own life and hopefully into many other lives. He was on a mission to succeed. With the help of a few loyal people who stood by him, he made it through the lowest of low times, the times when he wanted to give it all up. Then disaster struck. Hurricane Sandy hit and changed everything. His area had lost all power and and water was building up. With the help of a flashlight his sister Jennifer helped him make Friendship Lights to give out to hurricane victims. All you would see at night were people walking around with these little lights. Other times his sister Josephine would keep him motivated by telling him to go for it, as did his three nephews who are his official product testers and his parents who have always been there for him.

It was the toughest year of his life and it took blood, sweat and tears to create these Friendship Lights from nothing. But he'd do it all over again just to see a smile on your face when you get one. And he means that from the bottom of his heart because that's where Friendship Lights came from - his heart and soul.

With Friendship Lights, he hopes to inspire others to believe in true friendship, to share in the joys of life and most of all not to take life too seriously because we get more done when we are having fun and work together toward a common goal. His lights are also meant to brighten the day for people under stress, sick or lonely.

Since then he has created special anti-bullying Friendship Lights as well as Autism Awareness lights, Cancer Awareness and more, but he's not done yet. He constantly works on new ideas to highlight a special theme or cause with this Friendship Lights.

He says that going through all of this heartache and struggle has been a gift. His lead mantra is, "It was all a dream."

To learn more about Friendship Lights and to custom order them for an upcoming event, please visit the following website: http://friendshiplights.com

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Photos by Jack Giambanco