Lenape High School Principal Tony Cattani and student Radhika Soni hand out certificates to students who completed last year’s Phone Detox Challenge by giving up their cell phones for five days during classes.
Mount Laurel resident Kenneth Cunningham Jr. shared the discovery of a meteorite in his backyard measuring 15 inches long, 11 inches wide, 5 inches tall and weighing 27 pounds.
Mount Laurel’s Brandon Tamburri wrote and directed his first film, “Plan B,” using township and other area locations.
As we count down to the end of the year, here are some of the top stories for Mount Laurel in 2024.
Phones off
A Lenape Regional High School sophomore urged her peers to be take action against the negative impacts of social media and screen time in the classroom.
With the support of Lenape Principal Tony Cattani, Radhika Soni initiated a pilot program last year called the Phone Detox Challenge. For five days, students dropped their phones at the school’s main office in the morning and retrieved them at the end of classes.
In addition to first-hand experience with daily student cell-phone usage at Lenape, Soni’s research led her to a better understanding of dopamine, as well as social media addiction.
“Social media uses various tactics like notifications, likes and comments just to keep teenagers engaged,” she observed. “The more I read, the more interested I became in this topic.”
Soni’s was commended by teachers for bringing attention to teen cell-phone issues. As a follow-up, she presented the Phone Detox Challenge pilot. With the support of Cattani and the school’s main office staff, she initiated the program.
“There would be 10 students a week, and on Monday morning, they would drop off their phone at the main office,” she recalled. “The secretary would then put the phone in a bag and keep it at her desk for the day. At the end of the day, students would pick their phone up, and if they completed this the whole week, then on the final day, they receive a certificate of completion.”
Of the 100 students who completed the challenge in its first year, 50% percent were surveyed about their experience.
“The students said they were more concentrated, felt a stronger connection with their friends, and more productive,” Soni noted.
A backyard meteorite
After discovering a 27-pound meteorite in the backyard of his home near Hartford Road in June of 2017, a Mount Laurel resident shared his experience with The Sun earlier this year.
Kenneth Cunningham Jr., a township resident for more than 30 years, believes the meteorite struck a tree on his property at night seven years ago.
“I was home when it hit,” he recalled. “I thought it was a storm, like lightning or something. I was sleeping and woke up because everything lit up in a flash outside my bedroom window. I thought it was just lightning.
“Then I heard a crackling sound coming from over my house, which I thought was thunder,” Cunningham added. “Then there was a big bang at the end, the loudest sound I’ve heard in my life. I swore my whole house shook (from it).”
Cunningham immediately went to his window expecting to see damage outside, but ultimately everything appeared normal, so he went back to sleep assuming it was noise from a storm. The next day, he got a text saying a friend had witnessed what was perceived as a meteor flying over Cunningham’s home before disappearing into a wooded area.
“I didn’t think anything of (the text),” Cunningham acknowledged. “I was still going with the storm story.”
Cunningham attributed a large crater on a tree in his yard to a lightning strike. He later took notice of what looked like a small rock poking through the grass on his property, almost 18 feet away from the damaged tree.
“It was a little piece of a rock that kept showing more and more over time,” Cunningham noted. “As time went on, one day I just decided to dig it up.”
Cunningham then laid the rock on an old pool ladder near the tree. He discovered that a lightning strike causes a tree to splint and leave black burn marks on the its bark, none of which was true of his tree.
“I thought, ‘Oh lightning didn’t hit that (tree),’” Cunningham recalled. “I started looking at the crater on the tree and I realized the way the rock was facing (on the pool ladder) was the shape that was on the tree. Then everything clicked for me.”
Cunningham has since spoken with a NASA representative about getting confirmation of the meteorite. It is about 15 inches long, 11 inches wide and 5 inches tall.
Harrington alum’s film
Filmmaker Brandon Tamburri was born and raised in Mount Laurel, and his debut film, “Plan B,” brought him back to his township roots.
The 30-year-old writer and director attended Hartford Elementary and Harrington Middle schools before graduating from Holy Cross Prep in 2012. Throughout his adolescence, Tamburri constantly filmed short comedies with those around him.
“I always really enjoyed film, filmmaking, specifically comedy,” he said. “Growing up, I always had a video camera and would make these short films with friends and neighborhood kids.”
Tamburri got a bachelor’s in business and film from St. Joseph’s University, and while there, founded a sports marketing and memorabilia company he later sold. After college, he immediately began working for Mount Laurel’s NFL Films, where he gained experience by working in a video production environment that combined two of his passions: film and football.
Tamburri’s filmmaking aspirations led him to PalmStar Media, a Philadelphia-based production and finance company focused on film and television. It has produced more than 40 films, including the first two “John Wick” outings, and the 2018 horror film, “Hereditary.”
Initially an assistant to the film’s lead producer, Tamburri’s work on “Hereditary” evolved into an associate producer role, with tasks that ranged from providing notes on the script to opening insurance polices for the production. Four years ago, he founded Joke Zero, an entertainment company that produces comedic content.
“Plan B” started as a script Tamburri wrote with his friend, Jean S. Monpère, while at National Lampoon, and it became Joke Zero’s inaugural feature film. Released in theaters on Sept. 27, “Plan B” is a romantic comedy, the synopsis for which reads, “When a woman’s one-night stand with her awkward neighbor leaves her pregnant and desperate for solutions, she sets out on a wild mission to seduce a charming businessman.”
“(The concept and story for “Plan B”) was in my head for about two years,” Tamburri remembered. “It took (Monpère) and I around eight months to write the screenplay. We weren’t working on it full time; we would write on nights and weekends since we were both still working full-time jobs then.
“From there, it was probably another four years until I actually filmed the movie, and there were countless rewrites and tweaks (to the script) over those four years.”
Once funding for “Plan B” was secured, Tamburri went to work for award-winning producer and development executive DJ Dodd. With more than a decade of entertainment industry experience, the Philadelphia-based Dodd was able to help Tamburri cast his film.
The cast of “Plan B” includes Jamie Lee (of HBO’s “Crashing”), Jon Heder (“Napoleon Dynamite”), NFL’s Vernon Davis and comedian Subhah Agarwal. The film was shot entirely in Burlington and Camden counties, with a good amount in Mount Laurel. “Plan B” is available to buy or rent on most streaming platforms.
